> People still play chess and go and StarCraft

Those are activities where repeating the same experience yourself is still enjoyable, kind of like you might eat today even though you already ate yesterday.

Finding mathematical proofs is probably more like seeing the ending to a mystery novel. Once the ending has been spoiled for you, it's really hard for you to enjoy it the same way, and it might be more fun to move on to a different mystery.

Chess and StarCraft are games. For many other intellectual activities, part of the satisfaction comes from contributing something meaningful to a collective effort. If a machine can do that orders of magnitude faster, for many people these activities become effectively pointless.

Have you not already heard others make this analogy a million times by now? It seems like I read it multiple times a day at this point.

Mathematics can be enjoyed recreationally as a puzzle like any other, but it isn’t just an arbitrary puzzle. It’s a science where one discovers truth and seeks an understanding of, and dreams up, new phenomena. It’s not chess, or go, or StarCraft. There’s no fixed rule set and the goal isn’t to ‘win’ or beat your opponents.

Let’s stop repeating this nonsense as if it’s a profound observation.

> People still play chess and go and StarCraft

but very few get paid to do that