Like calling Lee Sedol a pretentious tool for retiring in the face of AlphaGo. If you really do mathematics for the enjoyment of doing mathematics, following a roughly unbroken line of tradition for at least a couple hundred years, an alien computer mind showing up and smashing everything would perhaps be upsetting, don't you think?

Nothing is stopping anyone from thinking deeply about math. The angst here is about whether they can get paid for it or not.

If you can't get paid to think about math anymore then you are by necessity going to spend a lot less time doing it.

Then I finally realized that Professors spend most of their days in meetings and management - not actual research!

Mostly Funding. Then each other. Then the myriad trivial yet bureaucratic things of daily life. Then research. I'd put research at like 10% of a week, so maybe 5 hours total.

Frankly, despite the obvious financial worries, it's been a little freeing. I can go do something else (because, uh, I may have to).