Scientists just proved it’s mathematically impossible to build a machine that can fully handle human-style questions.
March 24, 2026
Original Paper
Inquisitive first-order logic is neither compact nor recursively axiomatizable
arXiv · 2603.20845
The Takeaway
While standard logic handles simple true/false statements, 'Inquisitive Logic' attempts to model the logic of questions. This paper proves that once you add questions to the math, the system becomes so complex that no computer program can ever be written to verify every possible logical conclusion.
From the abstract
Inquisitive logic is a research program that extends the scope of logic to cover not only statements, but also questions. In the context of this program, a logic that plays a prominent role is inquisitive first-order logic, InqBQ, which extends classical first-order logic with a question-forming disjunction and a question-forming existential quantifier. This logic makes it possible to formalize a broad range of questions, and to capture their logical relations to each other and to statements. Si