This is pure math research we're talking about here. It's not exactly lucrative and people looking for commercially applicable results ASAP weren't funding it anyway.
People have been getting paid for it, and hopefully that can continue if they enjoy it, but why should we want them to be paid only to chase theoretical math if it has no valuable output, or if the value is in the pursuit rather than the output?
It's funny, the justification for accelerationism is that people can be paid (UBI) to pursue their passions. On the other hand, we have those that are asking why anyone should be paid for work that isn't economically viable. I suspect we're being sold a load of bullshit.
More importantly, I'm curious how you define an ideal human society. How do you land on what ideal is, or what it would take to get there?
The question is in what context does the human psyche thrive? We find meaning in personal struggle and overcoming obstacles. We're happiest when we're striving for something out of reach but seemingly attainable. We're much less happy when we have all of our needs met but have no source of meaning or fulfilling struggle. Our evolutionary history is one of struggling against hardship and finding personal meaning in the process. This is a core feature of our psyche and it is to our detriment to eliminate it.
This isn't to say we should all be struggling for our next meal. Much like cats, our core drives can be exercised and satiated through a simulacrum. There are many ways it can be satisfied, but strive we must, against something with inherent meaning to us. The problem with AI fully realized is that it takes away most avenues for human achievement, thus the struggle loses all meaning.
But reading the threads here on HN, in response to people saying "this sucks", AI boosters would rather redirect the conversation into economics and feign outrage that people are being paid to do mathematics at all.
Suddenly folks seem to be both in contempt of the idea of solving abstract puzzles without practical application, and certain that they want a higher efficiency of abstract puzzles solved per dollar (again, puzzles they probably don't care about).