OpenAI says it solved a famously hard computer problem. Again. Bloomberg/Getty Images

Turns out, OpenAI might be really good at computers.

On Monday, the company said it punctured the Exponential Time Hypothesis, or ETH, the nearly 30-year-old belief in the computer science community that some logic problems get overwhelmingly time-consuming as they grow. Hours later, Anthropic released its own research refuting ETH.

OpenAI said it had asked a group of outside computer scientists to organize an open review of its claim. The researchers have highlighted that their involvement is not an endorsement.

If the AI labs' announcements hold, they would likely reopen the hunt for increasingly capable algorithms — something that computer scientists had largely assumed couldn't get much better.

The ultra-nerdy claim has been a huge topic of conversation across social media and in techie circles.…