You don’t have to get paid to make contributions to math. There are still loads of hobbyists making contributions around the world. The guy that found the aperiodic monotile was a hobbyist who collaborated with a researcher. There was a significant proof in combinatorics (lower bound on superpermutations) contributed by an anonymous 4chan poster!
Hobbyist mathematics may long outlive a lot of research mathematics, and I think that’s okay. There’s nothing in the human spirit of inquiry that necessitates academia as an all-powerful institution. Heck, there have been a lot of problems with the institution in recent years, and those have everything to do with perverse incentives and nothing to do with AI.
Hobbyist mathematics may long outlive a lot of research mathematics, and I think that’s okay. There’s nothing in the human spirit of inquiry that necessitates academia as an all-powerful institution. Heck, there have been a lot of problems with the institution in recent years, and those have everything to do with perverse incentives and nothing to do with AI.