I don't think the time claim was exaggeration or clickbait.
I do appreciate you re-running the experiments without search. I think it adds far more legitimacy to the claim. Though in that link I only see a single instance.
Does O3 still beat you when it can't search? I'm still interested in that question. Or more specifically: After making O3's play constraints as comparable to a human's (in expected play settings), what is its performance? Truthfully, I think this is the underlying issue that people were bringing up when pointing out EXIF data. How it was cheating was less important than the fact that it was cheating. That's why allowing a different means to cheat undermines your claims.
I do appreciate you re-running the experiments without search. I think it adds far more legitimacy to the claim. Though in that link I only see a single instance.
Does O3 still beat you when it can't search? I'm still interested in that question. Or more specifically: After making O3's play constraints as comparable to a human's (in expected play settings), what is its performance? Truthfully, I think this is the underlying issue that people were bringing up when pointing out EXIF data. How it was cheating was less important than the fact that it was cheating. That's why allowing a different means to cheat undermines your claims.