AI hater here:
I have a hard time taking statements from OpenAI about their own product, that they are trying to sell to people and make money, seriously. I take these statements as they are greatly exaggerated or even straight up lies and propaganda.
That said, I think results like these are mostly annoying more then anything. They spent a lot of money, used up gigartiuan amount of compute, to ruin a puzzle that mathematicians were tackling. I am mostly unsurprised that if you spend a trillion times the energy that a team of mathematicians would, that you get maybe 1.5 times the results. I see a future where that 1.5 times the results may go to 3x but not much more. And if that, then I will be more annoyed.
A trillion times the energy might be a bit hyperbolic, even with the current massive amounts of energy involved here
Yes it is intentionally hyperbolic. I know the factor is several orders of magnitude. I don‘t know the exact, nor even the ballpark. I just know this is a ridiculously large amount, so I may as well pick a number large enough that people know it is an exaggeration.
I think giving the world a "cheat code" to accomplish too many intellectual tasks will eventually take its toll on us because after relegating most of our physical labour to machines, we could at least marvel at the abilities of individuals.
Yes, human beings can do more now in some ways but...to put it poetically, I think there will be no more heroes like Einstein and Newton of the past. Now it will just be someone cleverly turning the crank.
Yes, we still admire Usain Bolt even though we have cars...but maybe the admiration is a lot more trivial than if we did not have them....
Personally, I think AI is a grand mistake.