> primarily as a marketing exercise
Like the mathematicians working on famous problems in private until they could claim full credit for something interesting wasn't also a marketing exercise for their own careers. The commercial value (or lack thereof) of a proof doesn't depend on whether it was done by a human or a machine.
These mathematicians dedicated their life to math and were working for a long time to achieve the pinnacle of their careers.
OpenAI just burned millions of dollars over a weekend after hearing that someone else was close to solving the problems. Their interest was in their AI system more than the actual math problems.
Don’t you see how that’s different?