This is an empirical question, right? We could have three teams of researchers, team A focusing purely on understanding, team B focusing purely on solving problems, and team C focusing on a combination of the two. See which one makes the most breakthroughs on problems we actually care about.
I respect Tao and I believe he's trying to think deeply about the issues, but a lot of his thinking seems to revolve around preserving the current roles and prestige of mathematicians, and also makes a lot of assumptions about the capabilities of AI years or decades into the future.
I respect Tao and I believe he's trying to think deeply about the issues, but a lot of his thinking seems to revolve around preserving the current roles and prestige of mathematicians, and also makes a lot of assumptions about the capabilities of AI years or decades into the future.