Erdős Problems in the Age of AI

Associate Professor Anita Liebenau, UNSW Sydney

Spend an evening with A. Prof Anita Liebenau, a mathematician at UNSW Sydney, as she delivers her public lecture Erdős Problems in the Age of AI as part of the 2027 AMSI Summer School. This presentation is tailored for a general audience and suitable for individuals from Year 10 onward.

Whether you’re a teacher, researcher, student or simply curious about the allure of mathematics, this is an evening you won’t want to miss.

ABSTRACT

Paul Erdős was one of the most prolific mathematicians of the twentieth century. He posed hundreds of questions and conjectures about simple mathematical objects, such as numbers, graphs and sets. Many are easy to state and accessible to people without a background in mathematics, but have proved remarkably difficult to answer. Work on these problems has shaped modern combinatorics. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have put several Erdős problems in the spotlight. Precisely because they are often easy to state but difficult to solve, they have become a natural testing ground for AI in mathematics.

Using Erdős problems that are accessible with little more than dots, lines and counting, I will explore what these new systems are capable of and what their successes may tell us about doing mathematics. Looking at the stories behind these problems, we will ask what makes mathematics a human science. Correct answers are essential. But is knowing the truth enough, or is posing and exploring questions that shape future work equally important?

A. Prof. Anita Liebenau,
UNSW Sydney

Anita Liebenau is an Associate Professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at UNSW Sydney. In 2025, she was awarded the Australian Academy of Science’s Christopher Heyde Medal. Her research is in extremal and probabilistic combinatorics, including Ramsey theory, random graphs and combinatorial games.

These areas have been profoundly shaped by Erdős’s work.