Terence Tao on the matter - https://imgur.com/a/terence-tao-on-supposed-gold-imo-sMKP0bm
It’s as-if we had learned whale song, and then within two years a whale had won a Nobel prize for their research in high pressure aquatic environments. You’d similarly get naysayers debating the finer points of what special advantage whales may have in that particular field, neglecting the stunned shock of the general population — “Whales are publishing research papers now!? Award winning papers at that!?”
A computer system that can perform these tasks that were unthinkably complex a few years ago is quite impressive. That is a big win, and it can be celebrated. They don’t need to be celebrated as a “gold medalist” if they didn’t perform according to the same criteria as a gold-medalist.
That the architecture of the machine mind is different to ours is the point.
If it was identical then nobody would be excited! That’s a high school student equipped with a biological brain.
That the computer used silicon, that it used parallel agents, that it used whatever it has in its programming is irrelevant except in the sense that these very differences make the achievement more amazing — not less.
Last month, Tao himself said that we can compare humans and AIs at IMO. He even said such AI didn't exist yet and AIs won't beat IMO in 2025. And now that AIs can compete with humans at IMO under the same conditions that Tao mentioned, suddenly it becomes an apples-to-oranges comparison?