Was he? He was a child prodigy, which got him a lot of coverage in wider media, but then grew up and really became known in math circles. I'm sure he made lots of contributions to pure math and all and has won multiple academia-focused awards, but he didn't really make news outside of the math/academic area. Suddenly, with this AI math thing in the past year or two, he is starting to get more non-academic focused attention.
Yes he was. I was at some of lectures he gave, and there were literal queues to get his autograph.
> Suddenly, with this AI math thing in the past year or two, he is starting to get more non-academic focused attention.
He's just gaining popularity in your bubble, which is probably not much larger than the audience he previously had. It's not like he's suddenly become orders of magnitude more famous.
>there were literal queues to get his autograph.
What I would expect of someone who goes to an lecture of a professor. I never said he was completely unknown; just that he didn't have widespread recognition outside of academia. Getting autographs after an academic lecture doesn't dispute this.
>He's just gaining popularity in your bubble, which is probably not much larger than the audience he previously had.
The reason why he is gaining this popularity isn't anything to do with his academic achievements though. It's because of him being a child prodigy that is commenting on AI in math. So yes, he is reaching much further than his base, especially because of OpenAI's advancements in math and what it means about AI capability going forward. He has essentially positioned himself as the voice of mathematicians' position on AI and math.