As AI Closed In on ‘Unique Games’ Proof, Researchers Raced to Beat the Machines

On September 11, 2026, Dor Minzer, a computer scientist at MIT, received messages suggesting that OpenAI had allegedly proven the unique games conjecture, a major unsolved problem in theoretical computer science.

The conjecture deals with the difficulty of satisfying multiple constraints in problems like graph coloring, where nodes must be assigned colors based on specific edge rules.

Minzer initially dismissed the rumors as a joke, but they gained credibility as more messages arrived.

The unique games conjecture states that even if a problem's best solution satisfies 99% of constraints, finding even a very poor approximation (e.g., satisfying 1% or 0.001% of constraints) remains computationally hard.

A proof of this conjecture would imply that many other problems cannot be solved more efficiently than current methods allow.

OpenAI’s rumored breakthrough threatened to overshadow Minzer’s ongoing work.