Comment by _heimdall
17 hours ago
Its worth noting though that you are comparing a profession with a hobby.
People go to said crossword group to enjoy the process of solving the puzzles. It doesn't actually matter if they have been solved yet or not, case in point the NY Times puzzles are enjoyed by more than just the first to solve them.
Professional mathematicians are ultimately being paid to solve the problems for a (hopefully) practical reason. Its always excellent when a person enjoys the process of the work they are paid to do, but ultimately they are still paid to do the work. I really hope your argument isn't that we should collectively be funding mathematicians to solve problems simply doe the love of the game.
> Professional mathematicians are ultimately being paid to solve the problems for a (hopefully) practical reason.
They are paid for the same reasons the NEA pays artists: out of a sense of obligation to demonstrate elite culture. The track record of practicality of pure math after WWII is essentially 0.
While I don't disagree, I think any justification for why we should fund mathematics and why we should protect the work they are doing from being solved without them should be grounded in results.
Similarly I wouldn't expect a good argument could be made that AI tools should be prevented from creating art because we want to continue funding artists.
If the goal of said funding is just to let them spend their time doing it then it doesn't matter that AI is doing it as well.