> On the other side, I was looking myself for such a mechanism ever since we wrote the paper in 2019 and admire the efficiency of this construction.

He seems to admit very clearly he does not see this as his own work. 'I was looking...' well why did he stop? Because the AI figured it out first.

It seems quite odd to me to 'admire the construction' of something, only for your opinion to sour once that something figures it out first.

I think a lot of the emotional reaction here is familiar to us non mathematicians: you spent years developing expertise, and then LLMs began producing competent work in areas that had previously required that expertise. That's understandably uncomfortable, but discomfort by itself isn't evidence of misappropriation.