OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025 • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025

#221

Post by modeless » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

sealeck wrote: post #204

modeless wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most evidence you have about the world is claims from other people, not direct experiment. There seems to be a thought-terminating cliche here on HN, dismissing any claim from employees of large tech companies. Unlike seemingly most here on HN, I judge people's trustworthiness individually and not solely by the organization they belong to. Noam Brown is a well known researcher in the field and I see no reason to doub…

> I judge people's trustworthiness individually and not solely by the organization they belong to This is certainly a courageous viewpoint – I imagine this makes it very hard for you to engage in the modern world? Most of us are very bound by institutions we operate in!

Over the years my viewpoint has led to great success in predicting the direction and speed of development of many technologies, among other things. As a result, by objective metrics of professional and financial success, I have done very well. I think your imagination is misleading you.

Re: OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025

#222

Post by cynicalpeace » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 4:01 PM UTC

mikert89 wrote: post #133

The cynicism/denial on HN about AI is exhausting. Half the comments are some weird form of explaining away the ever increasing performance of these models I've been reading this website for probably 15 years, its never been this bad. many threads are completely unreadable, all the actual educated takes are on X, its almost like there was a talent drain

HN feels very low signal, since it's populated by people who barely interact with the real world

X is higher signal, but very group thinky. It's great if you want to know the trends, but gotta be careful not to jump off the cliff with the lemmings.

Highest signal is obviously non digital. Going to meetups, coffee/beers with friends, working with your hands, etc.

Re: OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025

#223

Post by modeless » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

emp17344 wrote: post #218

modeless wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO their involvement is only an issue if they gained an advantage on the benchmark by it. If they didn't train on the test set then their gained advantage is minimal and I don't see a big problem with it nor do I see an obligation to disclose. Especially since there is a hold-out set that OpenAI doesn't have access to, which can detect any malfeasance.

There’s no way to figure out whether they gained an advantage. We have to trust their claims, which again, is an issue for me after finding out they already lied.

Lied about what? Your only claim so far is that they failed to disclose something that in my opinion didn't need to be disclosed.

Re: OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025

#224

Post by mikert89 » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

wrsh07 wrote: post #215

sealeck wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been reading this website for probably 15 years, its never been this bad... all the actual educated takes are on X Almost every technical comment on HN is wrong (see for example essentially all the discussion of Rust async, in which people keep making up silly claims that Rust maintainers then attempt to patiently explain are wrong). The idea that the "educated" takes are on X though... that's crazy talk.

With regard to AI & LLMs Twitter/x is actually the only place with all of the industry people discussing. There are a bunch of great accounts to follow that are only really posting content to x. Karpathy, nearcyan, kalomaze, all of the OpenAI researchers including the link this discussion is on, many anthropic researchers. It's such a meme that you see people discuss reading Twitter thread + paper because the thread…

that people on here dont know alot of the leading researchers only post on X is a tell in itself

Re: OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025

#225

Post by scellus » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 4:04 PM UTC

mikert89 wrote: post #133

The cynicism/denial on HN about AI is exhausting. Half the comments are some weird form of explaining away the ever increasing performance of these models I've been reading this website for probably 15 years, its never been this bad. many threads are completely unreadable, all the actual educated takes are on X, its almost like there was a talent drain

It may be a talent drain too, but at least it's a selection bias. People just get enough and go away, or don't comment. At the extreme, that leads to a downward spiral in the epistemology of the site. Look at how AI fares in Bluesky.

As a partially separate issue, there are people trying to punish comments quoting AI by downvotes. You don't need to have a non-informative reply, just sourcing it to AI is enough. A random internet dude telling the same thing with less justification or detail is fine to them.

Re: OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025

#226

Post by fouc » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 4:05 PM UTC

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #174

kenjackson wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went through the thread and saw nothing that looked like this. I don’t think developers will be obsolete in five years. I don’t think AGI is around the corner. But I do think this is the biggest breakthrough in computer science history. I worked on accelerating DNNs a little less than a decade ago and had you shown me what we’re seeing now with LLMs I’d say it was closer to 50 years out than 20 years out.

[flagged]

you can add an /s to your earlier comment to make it more obvious it was a joke rather than a direct rebuttal that it got taken as

Re: OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025

#227

Post by LEDThereBeLight » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 4:06 PM UTC

imiric wrote: post #205

ninetyninenine wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense. Everyone here has their pride and identity tied to their ability to code. HN likes to upvote articles related to IQ because coding correlates with IQ and HNers like to think they are smart. AI is of course a direct attack on the average HNers identity. The response you see is like attacking a Christian on his religion. The pattern of defense is typical. When someone’s identity gets attacked they need to…

[flagged]

Your anger about his comment suggests that it actually is about pride and identity. I simply don’t buy that most people here argue against AI because they’re worried about software quality and lowering the user experience. It’s the same argument the American Medical Association made in order to allow them to gatekeep physician jobs and limit openings. We’ve had developers working on adtech directly intended to reduce the quality of the user experience for decades now.

Re: OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025

#228

Post by up2isomorphism » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 4:07 PM UTC

ddtaylor wrote: post #114

up2isomorphism wrote: post #102

In fact no car company claims “gold medal” performance in Olympic running even they can do that 100 yeas ago. Obviously since IMO does not generate much money so it is an easy target. BTW; “Gold medal performance “ looks a promotional term for me.

Glock should show up to the UFC and win the whole tournament handily.

Exactly!

Re: OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025

#229

Post by esperent » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 4:07 PM UTC

jsnell wrote: post #167

ALLTaken wrote: post #101

[flagged]

As far as I can tell, OpenAI didn't participate, and isn't claiming they participated. Note the fairly precise phrasing of "gold medal-level performance": they claim to have shown performance sufficient for a gold, not that they won one.

> they claim to have shown performance sufficient for a gold

This sounds very like Ferrari claiming that their cars can drive fast enough to get gold in the Olympic games 100 meter sprint.

Re: OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025

#230

Post by AtlasBarfed » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #171

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overconfidence/short sightedness on HN about AI is exhausting. Half the comments are some weird form of explaining how developers will be obsolete in five years and how close we are to AGI.

I went through the thread and saw nothing that looked like this. I don’t think developers will be obsolete in five years. I don’t think AGI is around the corner. But I do think this is the biggest breakthrough in computer science history. I worked on accelerating DNNs a little less than a decade ago and had you shown me what we’re seeing now with LLMs I’d say it was closer to 50 years out than 20 years out.

Greatest breakthru in compsci.

You mean the one that paves the way for ancient Egyptian slave worker economies?

Or totalitarian rule that 1984 couldn't imagine?

Or...... Worse?

The intermediate classes of society always relied on intelligence and competence to extract money from the powerful.

AI means those classes no longer have power.