> In the (extremely) short run, yes. In the long run, those jobs will also be done by AI.
Let's be honest: we don't know. Maybe you're right, but for the moment it's more likely that you're not. And countries cannot bet on that vague intuition at the cost of destroying their research communities and world leadership (which takes decades if not a century to achieve).
I don't think research communities should be destroyed.
Best case, they still matter.
Worst case, AI kills us all and it's irrelevant that we "wasted" money on research.