I don't think test scores have anything to do with the hype. Most people don't even realize test scores exist.<p>One is just to wow factor. It will be short lived. A bit like VR, which is awesome when you first try it, but it wears out quickly. Here, you can have a bot write convincing stories and generate nice looking images, which is awesome until you notice that the story doesn't make sense and that the images has many details wrong. This is not just a score, it is something you can see and experience.<p>And there is also the real thing. People start using GPT for real work. I have used it to document my code for instance, and it works really well, with it I can do a better job than without, and I can do it faster. Many students use it to do their homework, which may not be something you want, but it no less of a real use. Many artists are strongly protesting against generative AI, this in itself is telling, it means it is taken seriously, and at the same time, other artists are making use of it.<p>It is even use for great effect where you don't notice. Phone cameras are a good example, by enhancing details using AI, they give you much better pictures than what the optics are capable of. Some people don't like that because the picture are "not real", but most enjoy the better perceived quality. Then, there are image classifiers, speech-to-text and OCR, fuzzy searching, content ranking algorithms we love to hate, etc... that all make use of AI.<p>Note: here AI = machine learning with neural networks, which is what the hype is about. AI is a vague term that can mean just about anything.