Average Math Result Took 3 Hours of ChatGPT Pro Compute, Sparking Scaling Debate
birchlse · x · 2026-10-07
X user rynorhn flagged a striking research detail: the average result on hard math problems consumed compute equivalent to roughly three hours of ChatGPT Pro-level reasoning.
- These are problems humans spent years or decades on
- Averages imply some attempts cost far more compute
- The poster argues the industry is "nowhere near prepared" for the scaling implications
The thread captures the community's shock at long-horizon inference costs and what inference-time scaling might mean.
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