Comment by goodmythical

Isn't this the entire point of universities hiring celebrity mathematicians, giving them very light teaching loads, and access to millions in hardware that they would not otherwise have access to? Same for Chem/Bio/Phys/etc?

If Harvard Mathematician(s) Solve More Open Problems, then Harvard gets more (students, money). They then use some of that money for bonuses and some of it to reinvest in yet more solving that yields yet more (students, money).

Different Unis specialize in different fields not because the Uni itself is particularly fond of a certain field but because they see a gap in the market that they believe they can leverage. If there's a demand for say robotics that isn't being served particularly well elsewhere, an org like MIT sees that and capitalizes in order to bolster their finances more efficiently than their other departments are doing.

Both OpenAI and Leading Uni can say it's about the love of the game, but neither will allow a project that does not appear to be capable of bearing fruit to continue past the point that it appears to be likely to yield a positive ROI. This is why professors have to track their spending and apply for budgets and project approvals just like lead researchers at companies; so that the review board can protect the investment pool.

The only difference, historically, has been that Unis have openly provided results where for profit orgs have jealously guarded them. This provides room for an argument that the Unis are providing something to the public that the corps aren't. But OpenAI and others getting in to STEM are providing at least some open results to the public, and in a timely matter. On this front alone, then OpenAI et al are doing more for society than say a corporation that would not have provided it's proof of navier-stokes to the public free of charge.