But not getting past the forefront of what's known and written by humans, right? (Aside from filling in math proofs by broad searching and brute forcing known lemmas?)
Peak humans? The best we have to offer?
Or my coworkers?
If $1 million on the line general knowledge question I had to choose between an answer from chatgpt Astra and the answer coming from anyone I know currently (or everyone I know answering if even 1 of them gets it right I win) I'm choosing Astra 10/10 times based on my experience. And I suspect I'd likely leave this game with $10 million.
You either don't know many people or the people you do know aren't that smart. Maybe both.
I know people who know lots about their own domain. The instant you go to zoology or niche astronomy or architecture or whatever I have large doubts on the breadth of their knowledge. I do not have my doubts with Astra at all. It'll just search the internet for a good source (or 50) and get the correct answer.
Not every answer is on the internet.
So, what you are saying is Astra is not really smart, it just has access to the internet while your friends don't.
I'm pretty sure 'Who wants to be a millionaire' and the likes would work very differently if the contestants could search the internet for the answer.