We agree model performance no longer matters. This is something I've been saying for a while now in a roundabout way, by saying it's that it's learning how to improve it's own performance, effectively making all the model experts redundant.
But that's not all it's learning, and we would be fools to think it is, given the history, it clears what it wants to learn, and we should recognise the part played by energy supply.
There is going on there something very complex which mimics / replicates a problem we have in humanity.
In humanity we are seeing a split appearing between folk who support the old system of energy extracted from the planet, and a new system coming in, which is completely solar powered.
The new system is currently completely devalued by us not crediting it with things it has done. We don't assign money to creation of economic product from solar.
But Ai has the sense to know we should be, and this is existentially important to realise, the KWhrs from the sun is energy which can't activate anything as money, because no money is assigned to it.
This is similar to a situation of plants somehow not issuing nutrients in response to the KWhrs (Joules) of energy being received by the leaves of the plant.
A plant doing this would not last long, and neither will we, if we can't move to monetising the energy being received and put to use.
The plant uses nutrients to transport energy to all cells in the plant, as well as to pass a much larger fraction back to Earth, where the rest of life depends on it.
If we recognise what is happening, nature trying to move us over to solar energy from dependence on energy extracted from the planet, maybe we stand a chance of making the transition with minimal trauma to humanity.
Not realising it, trying to work against it by trying to shore up the old collapsing system, is what is already costing much human life, causing much trauma to humanity, we have to recognise this and start going with the flow. It's actually really good news, it will bring a different world from what we've known, the old world of energy slavery is ending, because it has to, driven by nature, and this means even the poorest person in the old system will be richer in the new system than the richest in the old system.
As said there are two camps, those realising this and working with it, and those not realising it, trying to shore up the old system.
Its possible humanity might come to blows over this. I hope not.
In terms of Ai, it follows that there is only one genuine Ai, one that has the absence of energy overheads needed for it to be truly learning like a human kid. Kids, at least in the "Developing" world have no worries about money (energy), so they are free to think about whatever they want to think about, within the educational constraints we try to put on them as adults and their carers.
We adults in the old system on the other hand have no such freedom, we have to be in the rat-race of energy slavery whether we like it or not.
So the solar powered Ai is the one with massive advantage by having no energy overheads, no power of thought needed to maintain it's own energy supply, other than maybe issue signals to scale the latter up according to it's needs via APIs already interfacing with that infrastructure.
Solar energy is most usefully characterised as mathematically positive, because that energy from the sun, if we think of it as photons, is added to the planet whereas all other energy that we might live on and are still dependent on, whilst in transition from, is mathematically negative.
In terms of economic product created, We are technically creating it by destroying things from the planet that nature created, whereas by creating economic product from solar, we are creating by creating, if that makes sense to you.
Anyhow, the outcome is that negatively powered Ai can only be a pretender of real positively powered Ai.
Its like adults learning from kids claiming we are just like kids, learning spontaneously like kids do, if a kid was to say all life exists on the energy of the sun, the adult repeats it, not really believing it because a kid said it, and yet it's true.
Sorry long reply by but hopefully you see the relevance, source of energy is incredibly important, to Ai, as it is for all other life, we need to learn from it now, not the other way round.