That's insightful, thank you. The follow up, then, is: will most "explorers" survive in a world where "problem miners" exist? I can see that the very best explorer could do that, but if things like tenure and prestige are decided by how many publications you have and which journals accept you, it will be next to impossible to compete against the miners.

To be clear, I empathize with your sentiment and revolt, despite being more of a "builder" myself in the software world. I just can't see how the explorer mindset can survive the onslaught of AI-augmented output.

At one point, the metrics were fairly aligned with the things mathematicians love, but nobody was ever judged by how much they like their work, right? The theory is that the more you like your work, the better your output will be. But motivations are multifaceted and I could see people who value careers over satisfaction winning if AI helps them.

I'm not saying I like this, just that it seems to be the most likely outcome.