In Plato’s “Republic”, society comprises men of gold, who are fit to rule, men of silver, destined to be soldiers, and those of bronze, who become farmers. Since 1959 the world’s top teenage mathematicians (and, more recently, those of great ability in other fields) have tested their mettle in international competitions called Olympiads. Around 300 medals of gold, silver and bronze are awarded for maths annually. A smaller number are given for physics, chemistry and informatics (ie, computing). From the ranks of the winners has emerged an elite unlike any in the history of capitalism. Behold: Olympiad Man.
The crisis over the safety of artificial intelligence is best understood as a crisis among Olympiad Men. Last year AI models managed gold-medal performances in maths. Relentless advances since have led a pair of researchers at Anthropic, who made up a third of Britain’s maths Olympiad team in 2017, to resign. Anthropic’s boss, Dario Amodei, was once a member of the squad, but not quite the starting line-up