I watched the movie '21' (2008) for free on YouTube yesterday.

The opening of the movie features the MIT campus full of students navigating its grounds and all the promise and status that higher education brings. [0]

Gave me the same sense of sadness realizing how much will fall to AI.

[0] - https://youtu.be/0lsUsWdkk0Y?si=TJl7f_b1RcWcDqF8&t=278

This was the most interesting line in the essay to me as well — I flashed back to quitting an academic math career instantly; the way I thought about it at 19 or 20 was that I didn’t think I could be world class at it. (Rightly). The next thought I had was “what am I good at?” And implied in that was at the very least “What could I be world class at?” Or at least very good at.

I don’t think I ever thought I was good enough to try and get (math) immortality by finding and naming some result that would live beyond me, but if I had, perhaps this bad news would have had a similar impact on me.

That said, I think I disagree with the premise at the margin, at least. I don’t care how many proof assistants or cluster compute is used - the team or person that proves the Riemann Hypothesis will be famous, or at least math famous.

I don't know that it's that disappointing. I doubt most of the great mathematicians were actually doing it to achieve immortality. I suspect most of them were either after (possibly indirect) practical applications (via the math -> physics -> engineering pipeline) or just "for the love of the game", appreciation of the beauty of math and the intellectual joy of doing it. AI might also take over the practical application side, but the other aspects are still there for the taking.

Now repeat that for every sort of human achievement