This thread had me a bit confused, then I realised the discrepancy. Your objective isn't to label the high school kid as privileged to remove respect for his work. It is to highlight the privilege to others that don't have the same privilege, who may see this as what success looks like, so the discouragement of not being able to do it (no access to GPUs) isn't attributed to a lack of their own ability or intelligence but something outside their control (privilege).
The kid in the article had a big brain to begin with, and there were ample buffs at his disposal, so he got to speed run his interest because he was lucky enough to be born in the right zip code. It doesn't diminish his work at all. (And it is also true that there are plenty of rich failsons and faildaughters who get slotted into birthright CEO positions without ever knowing adversity.)
I like Finland's approach: they have no private schools [1], which means rich kids go to the same public schools as poor kids (or their parents fly their kids out of the country). This means there is a much greater likelihood of advanced resources for smarter kids. But Finland also doesn't have the radical wealth disparity that we have in the US.
