Bacteria that break down plastic already exist, both naturally and synthetically. Optimizing those is one of the most popular student projects in my university. Hardly a millennium problem.

What seems ridiculous to me is putting together any such lists, even in math, and expecting/hoping the AI companies to solve them. The people working for the AI companies are not scientists or experts in anything outside of building LLMs. The best chance of making progress on genuinely tough (not just computationally challenging) tasks is to put advanced tools in the hands of actual scientists.

It's inane, actually - I thought this might be something put on by an Allen Institute or some actually well-respected organization.