OpenAI and Google have both announced that they have received gold medal scores in the International Math Olympiad.
That's the IMO this year in 2025.
Now, I want to break down exactly what this competition is because it might not be as, I guess, intense as some people would think it is.
And like, I'll also preface by saying this is really impressive, but I'll break down exactly what it is, why they have achieved this.
And I think most hilariously, I cannot do this podcast episode without covering all of the drama that is actually going on right now between OpenAI and Google.
Google throwing some massive shade over at OpenAI for the way that they announced their results, which technically seems to have been against some rules and stuff.
So anyways, we're going to get into all of that.
Overall, these AM models are progressing very fast, I think is the big takeaway.
But I do need to explain this, I think, for people to fully understand the context of the situation here.
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All right, let's get into everything going on between OpenAI and Google.
So this kind of all started with a tweet, which is from, well, actually, backing up a week ago, almost, or last week, OpenAI announced that they had achieved the score.
So basically, that means they got four out of five questions correct on the math Olympiad this year.
And so four to five is a gold medal score.
These are really complex problems. And this is usually competed on by high school students.
And so, you know, people in their the end of high school are going to go and kind of compete in this.
Okay, so this is that was last week.
And then we just got the news that Google also got a gold medal.
And when I heard this, I was like, Oh, that's funny.
Like Google must have, you know, heard opening, I did it, and they try to compete.
I wasn't super aware of the competition and didn't realize they're both competing at the same time in the same competition, just open AI, I guess wanted to get a leg up on Google and announce the results first because it made big headlines.
And now it almost feels like a tag on the Google's like, Oh, we did it too.
Google evidently is not happy to feel like they are a tag on to this.
So this is Demis Hassabi.
He is a Nobel laureate.
He's a co founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, if you probably know him.
This is what he said on Twitter.
He said official Official results are in Gemini achieved gold medal level in the International Mathematical Olympiad.
An advanced version was able to solve five out of six problems. OK, sorry, not four to five, five out of six problems. Incredible progress.
Huge congrats to I'm thing and the team.
OK, so he also said we achieved this year's impressive result using an advanced version of Gemini deep think.
So advanced means not everybody has access to this.
If you're going and using it, you know what this is.
is exactly like this is exactly like when car companies will make, you know, they'll show off in, you know, Mercedes will have this absolutely insane car that they built.
And it goes and races and sets all sorts of records at that.
What is it the people are going to hate me for it.
But it's the famous racetrack in Germany that the Nombrich or I know that's not the name case of y 'all can hate me for forgetting the name of that.
But the famous racetrack in Germany that everyone sets the records at, they do not send production cars to that racetrack.
They make all sorts of insane modifications.
I remember when Porsche and Tesla a few years ago were having this big competition there.
And Tesla was like, look, we can make this electric car just to like beat all the records.
And but they sent this like Tesla Model S plaid with a whole bunch of customizations that were not in, you know, your standard Tesla's and it went inside a bunch of records.
But the thing is, it's like we show off the absolute fastest our car could be, but we never actually you put that card into production, right?
And so it's kind of like annoying for consumers.
This is exactly like these AI models.
They're like, there was an advanced version of Gemini deep think it's like, basic people don't get it.
We just like gave it tons of compute and tons of money to spend on these questions.
And if we give it unlimited money and compute, we can solve really cool questions.
But for your Gemini version you're using, you do not get any of these features.
That was kind of funny.
They said, our model operated end to end in natural language producing rigorous mathematical mathematical proofs directly from the official problem description, all within the 4 .5 hour competition time limit.
We'll be making a version of this DeepThink model available to a set of trusted testers, including mathematicians, before rolling it out to Google AI Ultra subscribers.
Okay. Unlike the cars, they will be giving some people this.
Now, Google AI Ultra, go look at the price tiers on that.
It's not cheap. So definitely most people are not getting this, but kudos to done for making available.
Okay. Now we get to the drama.
So basically these models are getting way better.
Um, and I will bring up that these models have actually attempted this test before.
This isn't the first time they've taken the test. So, uh, we've, I believe Google got a silver medal score last time it took this, but here's the caveat opening eye in Google last time that they took this test and probably I think was last year.
Um, when they took it, they essentially essentially allowed the researchers to take the math questions and convert them into something that the AI model could understand, right?
So like, if there is a picture of a really complex math problem, the researchers could like write it down in like a computerized text format, that's easy to understand and do this time, they did not do that.
These models were just basically with their vision with everything that they had, we're able to look at the problems and solve them to this level.
So this is actually a really big step, I think in that like, obviously, we're not going to have mathematicians sitting there breaking down questions to make it easier for AI models to solve that definitely feels like cheating.
So this is really cool.
They were able to see the problem and they solved it better than before from silver to gold.
And it did the whole thing itself.
Okay, so I am impressed, like consider me very impressed on that, the progress.
But now we get into the drama with open AI.
Why did open AI release there's a week before Google what happened here?
Demi says, by the way, as an aside, we didn't announce on Friday, because we respected the IMO's board's original request that all AI labs, cough, cough, opening eye, you didn't say that, I did, share their results only after the official results had been verified by the independent experts and the students had rightly received the acclamation they deserved.
We've now been given permission to share our results and are pleased to have been part of this inaugural cohort to have our model results officially graded and certified by the IMO coordinators and experts receiving the first official gold level level performance grading for an AI system.
So he said receiving the first official gold level performance, but open I also got one, the one thing I will say, so I mean, the first also the second, the tie with opening up, you both got, you both got a gold medal status, but whatever, what I did think was interesting here.
So basically, what happened was open AI.
I think TechCrunch, like reached out to them was like, what the heck happened?
Like, how come you you guys did your results early.
They weren't supposed to.
Basically, the the IMO is like, hey, like take come take the test with all of the students and then let's like give the students their flowers.
So this whole thing isn't just a big, you know, a big celebration about AI model progress.
And we'll announce whoever wins, then you can do it.
Well, I didn't really want to wait for that.
So apparently what happened was opening, I hired their own like researchers after it took the test to go and look at the results and grade it themselves.
Typically, you would wait for the IMO to have their, their, you know, the researchers or their officials to go look at the look at the content and then grade it.
So apparently opening I hired third party evaluators, three former IMO medalists who understood the grading system.
So to be fair to opening I like they did a really good job, they probably paid a lot of money, they found people that formerly worked there.
They use them to grade the AI models performance after they learned of their gold medal score, the company reached out to the IMO, which then told them to wait to announce until after the Friday night ceremony.
Did they do that? No, they didn't.
They just announced it anyways, because they were, you know, excited or whatever.
So yeah, Google's not really wrong here.
They probably should have waited.
One thing that I will say is interesting is it feels like opening, I used to have a huge lead in the industry.
It feels like it's a lot closer.
Now, Google has has roared right up next to them we have xai that you know according to the benchmarks people get mad at me all the time you go read some like youtube comments i mentioned recently that xai was as good as a phd researcher on a lot of topics uh which is basically what their benchmark results showed but in any case people got mad at me i understand that all the controversy around xai i think they do a lot of dumb things i think they're doing some smart things whatever don't get mad at me don't shoot the messenger their benchmarks are really good they They have the best benchmarks.
Um, it doesn't mean it's the best in the real world.
Y 'all can argue that, but it has the best benchmark.
So there's a bunch of these top companies and, uh, it feels like they're a lot closer.
Now, I will give the caveat that OpenAI allegedly is going to release GPT -5 soon, but I don't put too much weight in who the hearsay of who's going to release what next, because I like to just play with the cards that are, you know, the cards that are on the ground.
I feel like I've been disappointed by a bunch of big announcements of, oh my gosh, this latest model, GPT 4 .5 is going to be insane.
And it wasn't as crazy as you might've thought or hoped for, or it was too slow to be too useful or whatever.
There's all these different things.
I'm not saying pointing fingers at OpenAI, all the companies.
So I will say it feels like the industry is quite matched right now.
And every company that releases the latest model is the best model.
We just had XAI before that it was Google before that it was Anthropica before that it was OpenAI.
So it seems to just kind of go in a circle, but in any case what, so we'll have more, but it feels like it's pretty evenly matched right now.
No one is like leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else.
And you would hope not.
The only one I feel like that is leaps and bounds behind is Apple is like a million miles under the sea, 10 ,000 leagues under the sea.
And then we have, of course, Meta who feels like they're lagging behind, but Zuckerberg is spending billions of dollars.
The latest is that he offered a researcher $1 .2 billion in AI researcher over four years from OpenAI to come join Meta's super intelligence team.
And apparently they turned it down.
Now, not all of them have turned it down.
Many have actually left OpenAI to go over to Meta.
Basically, Meta, uh, has to look at how, what the value of the OpenAI shares are that that person has that if they leave, they'll lose the best. And they're like, I can't, it's the golden handcuffs, right?
They're like, I can't leave OpenAI because I have like half a, you know, I have $500 million worth of shares that are going to invest over the next four years.
And Zuckerberg's like, that's fine.
We'll just, we'll just pay you for whatever those are worth.
Just come over, just get started now.
And you'll, you know, double your money and get paid for those shares.
So it's been pretty crazy.
Um, and so I expect them to catch up quickly.
based off of the money that they're spending on it.
But they're definitely not I feel like at the head of head of the pack right now.
So it feels like a lot of these companies are pretty close.
And while it doesn't really matter who announced it first opening I or Google in the same week, basically, the models had the same results.
So they both have gold medals.
Now, beyond all the drama and who's best, whatever, I think it's a really good point to just say, these models have have progressed so much faster than I actually anticipated in the last year.
This is very impressive that on this particular test, they went from silver to gold and to be able to do it all by themselves, we're gonna see some amazing advancements.
I'm really excited.
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