The mystery is whether AI solved it on its own or just took the final step using a lot of novel work done by a small number of mathematicians who were using AI

The mystery is whether AI solved it on its own or just took the final step using a lot of novel work done by a small number of mathematicians who were using AI to test their ideas incrementally. there's a big difference between oneshotting something that performs a very complex task autonomously and doing that very complex task by making hundreds of small iterations.