How social media encourages the worst of AI boosterism

The era of hype first, think later. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, summed it up in three words: "This is embarrassing." Hassabis was replying on X to an overexcited post by Sébastien Bubeck, a research scientist at the rival firm OpenAI, announcing that two mathematicians had used OpenAI's latest large language model, GPT-5, to find solutions to 10 unsolved problems in mathematics. "Science acceleration via AI has officially begun," Bubeck crowed. Put your math hats on for a minute, and let's take a look at what this beef from mid-October was about. Bubeck was excited that GPT-5 seemed to have somehow solved a number of puzzles known as Erdős problems.