> There seems to be more interest in hitting some arbitrary benchmark (we proved X unsolved problems) than in genuinely contributing to mathematics

I feel the same way about academia, the papers, the citations, the ego, the narcissism and the taxpayer codependency that got cut off and turns out wasn’t necessary at all thanks to a private sector entity running laps around them

I don’t feel that academics need to pursue the discipline and distributed brain-wracking that has sometimes resulted in the solved math problems, just because more times they find other nooks and crannies to explore along the way. I think the blueprint is enough. Standing on the shoulders of giants is good enough.

and if the concern is that they can’t figure out what to do with a proof, next year’s AI will