Claude has discovered a previously unknown enzyme system hidden in the DNA of bacteriophages. Beside the enzyme’s gene sits a long array of repeating DNA—a structure that looks somewhat similar to CRISPR. We don’t yet understand what this system does, but only a handful of known systems share its features, and all of them are able to cut, copy, and paste DNA. Historically, the discovery of such programmable systems has helped revolutionize medicine. CRISPR, for instance, is now the foundation of genetic medicines. But it will take much more work to learn what this system does, and whether it can be put to similar use. Read more: anthropic.com/news/claude-di…

Anthropic’s Economics team is sharing a new model of how AI might affect economic growth, jobs, wages, and more by 2030. Explore the scenarios, tell us what you think will happen, and see how your answers compare to more than 10,000 Americans. anthropic.com/institute/econ…

Checking that a major mathematical proof is correct can take years. Formalization—converting the mathematical reasoning into a form computer proof assistants like Lean can verify—can help. Last month, Claude completed the first formalized proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, one of the most famous theorems of all time. This was a project experts thought would take many years. It is the largest Lean proof ever written. Fermat’s Last Theorem was first proven in 1995 by Sir Andrew Wiles, more than 350 years after it was conjectured. Our proof, which totals over 13 million lines of code, provides machine verification. More importantly, it proves over 29,000 other theorems that the proof requires, across many areas of math which had never before been formalized. We see this as a major step in the long process of firming up the core of mathematical knowledge, building on work from three centuries of mathematicians and hundreds of contributors to Lean and Mathlib. We are optimistic that AI-assisted verification of mathematical proofs will help reduce the burden of refereeing mathematics in an era where more proofs are being produced than ever before. You can read about the process on our Science Blog: anthropic.com/research/forma… And see the complete proof on GitHub: github.com/anthropics/fermat…