For what it's worth, most mathematicians are paid to teach, and the amount of research funding going into mathematics is relatively small. Plus, there are rare but important broader advancements due to pure and applied math that are hard to predict in advance (e.g., cryptography, compressed sensing).

Mathematicians also decide what to prove in their research - taste is not a skill we have RLVR'd away (yet, not claiming this is fundamental).

Of course, the field is being fundamentally transformed, it will probably end up looking more like experimental science in the future.