> I wonder if this is a sign of things to come - rather than needing to find explicit deterministic solutions to many problems that might actually have one, because ML is getting much more powerful and accessible instead we'll just use ML models and get 99.9% accurate solutions, but say, well that's good enough.
You're not alone: http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html
For a more echo chess specific answer, see my answer above to @bazzargh
But I wonder if this is a sign of things to come - rather than needing to find explicit deterministic solutions to many problems that might actually have one, because ML is getting much more powerful and accessible instead we'll just use ML models and get 99.9% accurate solutions, but say, well that's good enough.