Answered from MIT Professor: What is Strong ETH (Recently Proven False By OpenAI) | Ryan Williams · Ryan Peterman · 2026-10-27
Ryan Williams says the truth of strong ETH has become almost irrelevant to him. Assuming it is false makes him ask what an algorithm beating 2^n could look like, which rules out the natural approaches already known to fail and pushes his thinking in new directions. He calls the belief operationally useful for research, even though he has not refuted the hypothesis.
“it's very useful for me to believe that it's false” Ryan Williams · at 5:37 — open in the transcript →
Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Ryan Peterman (2026-10-27). Read the whole episode summary →