Definition
Plain language
When an AI prover gives up on a step but leaves a written note on how the next attempt should break it into smaller pieces.
As stated in the literature
In Goedel-Architect, the diagnosis flavor for sound-but-too-hard sub-lemmas: a forfeiting prover writes a structured post-mortem proposing a decomposition, which the next blueprint revision turns into helper lemmas and reassembles.
Why it matters: It turns a giving-up moment into useful guidance, letting later attempts break an overwhelming problem into pieces they can actually solve.
For example, a prover that can't crack a hard step writes a note suggesting the step be split into two smaller helper claims, which the next attempt then tackles separately.
Heard on the show
“The second one they call the forfeit channel, and it handles the more common case.”Episode 117 — How an Open AI System Verified 672 Hard Math Proofs for Under $300