Would You Take the AI’s Cancer Cure? | This Week in IP

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When an AI hands you an answer you can’t check yourself, what earns your trust? OpenAI posted 722 AI-written math papers. A day later, three were withdrawn after a sign error, and as of the latest update about 42% of the 719 that remain have their main result checked in the Lean proof checker. Then Terence Tao asked a sharper question in his Caltech lecture “Math 2.0”: if an AI found a cancer cure nobody understands, and it passed the trial, would you take it? Seth Cronin works through reward hacking, Goodhart’s law, why people game metrics too, and what he learned building Frix AI before going back to consulting. Proof got cheap. Trust didn’t. Also this week: an open-source project rebuilding Adobe-style apps with AI coding agents; an OpenAI employee arrested over an alleged recording device in an executive conference room; Character.AI files for Chapter 11, with Disney as the opening bidder for a non-exclusive license to some of its IP; Microsoft Research’s StudentSim, simulated students for testing AI tutors; and Patent of the Week, Intuit’s patent on keeping the math out of the LLM. Think of the last time an AI gave you an answer at work that looked right. What would you have needed to see before you bet your trust on it? Tell us in the comments. This Week in IP, from Invent Anything Hosted by Seth Cronin | ipCapital Group Released October 20, 2026; sources dated October 6–13, 2026. CHAPTERS 0:00 Would you take an AI’s cancer cure? 0:51 Somebody rebuilt Adobe 1:26 An alleged recording device at OpenAI 2:29 Character.AI’s bankruptcy and Disney’s bid 3:35 StudentSim: fake students for testing AI tutors 4:34 Main story: OpenAI’s 722 math papers 5:33 Terence Tao, reward hacking and Goodhart’s law 6:11 Would you want a human who understands it? 7:11 The fair argument on the other side 7:40 People reward-hack too 8:30 Why I went back to consulting 9:35 What an expert still has to do 10:10 Proof got cheap. Trust didn’t. 10:35 Patent of the Week: Intuit keeps the math out of the LLM 12:11 What would you need to see? SOURCES Fireship — “Every app on Earth is now open source... whether it likes it or not” (October 12, 2026): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wajoP_5Cpw8 PhotoCraft — README and target-app parity assessment (the project’s own figures): https://github.com/storytold/photocraft OpenAI Newsroom on X (October 13, 2026): https://x.com/OpenAINewsroom/status/2110095403198849132 TechCrunch (October 13, 2026): https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/13/fbi-arrests-openai-employee-accused-of-planting-hidden-recording-device-in-conference-room/ TechCrunch — Character.AI files for bankruptcy (October 13, 2026): https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/13/just-5-years-in-interactive-chatbot-platform-character-ai-files-for-bankruptcy/ Reuters via NBC News (October 13, 2026): https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/characterai-files-bankruptcy-sell-assets-disney-20-million-rcna603174 Microsoft Research — Simulating student learning for better AI tutoring (October 12, 2026): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/simulating-student-learning-for-better-ai-tutoring/ OpenAI — openai/math repository and change log (October 6–12, 2026): https://github.com/openai/math Terence Tao — “Math 2.0,” Caltech public lecture (October 9, 2026); slides and post: https://teorth.github.io/tao-web/slides/math-2-0-caltech-2026.pdf https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/10/math-2-0/ Intuit — US 12,761,979 B2, “Large language model and deterministic calculator systems and methods,” granted October 13, 2026: https://patentsgazette.uspto.gov/week41/OG/html/1551-2/US12761979-20261013.html Published application US 2025/0068488 A1: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20250068488A1/en The recording-device story rests on allegations in a criminal complaint; no one has been convicted. PhotoCraft’s feature and readiness figures are the project’s own assessment. StudentSim’s results are simulated, not classroom outcomes. A granted patent does not establish that a product uses the invention. The Frix story is Seth’s own experience. Tao’s slides are shown unaltered with attribution; the drawings are our own sketches. Strategy education from ipCapital Group, an IP strategy consulting firm (not a law firm). Nothing here is legal advice. MUSIC “The Crate Desk” — original composition for Invent Anything. Piano recordings by Versilian Studios, packaged by Nicholaus P. Brosowsky (tonejs-instruments), CC BY 3.0; pitch-shifted, arranged and processed. No endorsement implied. https://github.com/nbrosowsky/tonejs-instruments https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Additional sounds: Karoryfer Black and Blue Basses and VCSL (CC0); GeneralUser GS by S. Christian Collins. Jev LevelDrive saturation used under its MIT license. https://schristiancollins.com/generaluser.php #ThisWeekInIP #InventAnything #Invention #Innovation #AI