But is understanding the end goal? Understanding for the sake of understanding? Or understanding for the sake of being able to solve problems for the benefit of humanity?
It's not about improving understanding, as you just pointed out.
So why? What the purpose? Is it just pure misanthropy?
A small subset of humans who lost a bunch of comparative advantage hate it. Most people who care about math in the abstract probably think it's really cool!
The thing I liked about humanity was its ability to think. Making that valueless is not my idea of progress.