> Much as one cannot unhear a movie spoiler or a crossword clue, one cannot explore a problem as profitably and richly once one is aware of an existing solution

Certainly, it’s like being made aware of cheat codes to video games: One doesn’t enjoy the game as much after but surely knowing something is true means you can find many other things that come from the pathway to it now that you know it’s true. Lots of science and tech is like this where someone shows something is doable and then people find better ways to do it but until that person showed it was doable there was no progress.

> I am horrified by the many person-years” of research, particularly by young mathematicians, “being casually disrupted or destroyed,” he wrote.

That’s what technology does. And he might be upset but we’re the ones paying for it and frankly, I’m happier to have more questions answered than for fewer answered but in an artisanal fashion.

Most notable is the fact that the released facts are like “treated waste”. But if the question was worth answering and the value is only in a good answer and not simply a correct answer, then the value has simply not been realized.

But that feels strange then that the value is in the good answer, not just a right answer and yet one finds oneself unable to go get the good answer because a correct answer exists.

The fact that any answers are made public at all is useful to us all. That’s free knowledge. Would it have been better if OpenAI had discovered this very achievable fact and not said anything? Surely the papers, post discovery would have spoken of the “hoarding” of such “essential human knowledge”.

Overall, I find the thing unconvincing wholly.