AI research Archives

At just 24, Carina Hong has convinced some of the brightest minds in AI to leave Meta and join her startup, Axiom Math. The company aims to build an AI capable of advanced mathematical reasoning what Hong calls an “AI mathematician.”

Since founding Axiom in March 2025, Hong has already attracted a team of 17 employees, including researchers from Meta’s FAIR lab, Meta’s GenAI team, and Google Brain (now part of DeepMind). Axiom recently announced a $64 million seed funding round, giving the startup resources to tackle math problems that have stumped humans for decades.

Recruiting Top Talent With a Mission

Hong believes that solving complex mathematical problems is key to developing advanced AI systems. This vision has helped her attract top-tier talent who see Axiom’s work as their professional legacy. “When the problem is hard enough, talent density gets very high, and that makes you a magnet for other great thinkers,” she told Business Insider.

Some of Axiom’s Meta recruits include Shubho Sengupta, the startup’s CTO, who Hong met by chance at a coffee shop, as well as Francois Charton, Aram Markosyan, and Hugh Leather. Hong also brought in her former professor, renowned mathematician Ken Ono.

Despite Meta offering industry-standard retention packages, Axiom’s mission and early-stage upside proved irresistible for many recruits. The startup’s non-hierarchical culture and focus on meaningful, challenging work have also contributed to its appeal.

Why It Matters

Axiom Math is more than just a math-focused AI startup. The technology could eventually have applications in hardware and software verification, quantitative finance, cryptography, and any domain requiring provably correct reasoning. By tackling complex mathematics, Axiom positions itself at the frontier of AI research, bridging theory and practical implementation.

What’s Next

While Axiom is still small, its early successes like reportedly solving two long-standing Erdos math problems signal a startup that could reshape AI research. Hong’s ability to attract top talent and foster a mission-driven culture will be key as the company grows.

Peer Review Under Strain

The volume of submissions to major conferences has increased faster than the availability of qualified reviewers. Tools like Citation Check help highlight suspicious references but rely on human verification for final judgment.

The integrity of citations is critical. Misleading or fabricated references can distort the scientific record and influence subsequent research, policy, or technology adoption. Identifying and questioning these discrepancies is part of maintaining a reliable scholarly ecosystem.

Patterns in Hallucinations

Among the 50 flagged papers, patterns included:

Incorrect author lists paired with real paper titles.

Altered journal names, years, and page numbers.

Papers combining multiple sources into a single fabricated citation.

These inconsistencies illustrate how small deviations can propagate unnoticed through peer review if attention to detail is lacking.

What This Means for Research

Citations serve as the connective tissue of scientific work. When references are unreliable, readers lose context, the credibility of research is weakened, and the mechanisms of verification break down. Identifying hallucinations is not just about catching errors, it is about understanding where scholarly practices may need adjustment.