I read the scientist quote in a newspaper article first and the surprise seemed to hinge on his entire team working on the problem for a decade and not publishing anything in a way that AI could gobble it up (which seemed strange to me) and no other human researcher working on the problem over that decade-ish timespan publishing anything suggesting the same idea.

Which seems a hard thing to disprove.

In which case, if some rival of his had done the same search a month earlier, could he have claimed the priority? And would the question of whether the idea had leaked then been a bit more salient to him. (Though it seems the decade of work might be the important bit, not the general idea).