My view (as an applied mathematician who’s been grappling with their future for some years now) is a bit in your poetry direction, but different. First of all, I am not entirely sure yet that humans will quickly have literally zero “math-economy-value” at all. I’d actually consider it quite plausible right now that in ten years, “human-in-the-loop-systems” can still significantly outperform pure AI systems at certain long term math tasks.
However, my plan for the possibility of literally zero math-economy-value of humans (and humans still being humans-as-today and existing, and a somehow stable society, etc) in a few years is as follows: I want to still understand key technical mathematical arguments which are relevant for modern technology and which lie within my field. I want to understand them as well as possible under certain constraints (for instance, without taking into account explanations from models which may have agendas and try to influence people). I recognize that I may be worse than AI in every measurable way at that. But I still think it may have some societal value (even though very little) to have humans (instead of just AI) which push towards this kind of deep mathematical understanding when thinking of trustworthiness, etc. Perhaps this is all just cope though, not sure. At least it also sounds more interesting than becoming a poet. Maybe rather “Mathematics as eternal study”?
My view (as an applied mathematician who’s been grappling with their future for some years now) is a bit in your poetry direction, but different. First of all, I am not entirely sure yet that humans will quickly have literally zero “math-economy-value” at all. I’d actually consider it quite plausible right now that in ten years, “human-in-the-loop-systems” can still significantly outperform pure AI systems at certain long term math tasks.
However, my plan for the possibility of literally zero math-economy-value of humans (and humans still being humans-as-today and existing, and a somehow stable society, etc) in a few years is as follows: I want to still understand key technical mathematical arguments which are relevant for modern technology and which lie within my field. I want to understand them as well as possible under certain constraints (for instance, without taking into account explanations from models which may have agendas and try to influence people). I recognize that I may be worse than AI in every measurable way at that. But I still think it may have some societal value (even though very little) to have humans (instead of just AI) which push towards this kind of deep mathematical understanding when thinking of trustworthiness, etc. Perhaps this is all just cope though, not sure. At least it also sounds more interesting than becoming a poet. Maybe rather “Mathematics as eternal study”?