Famed mathematician William Thurston has a good response here (from On Proof and Progress in Mathematics https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/9404236.pdf https://arxiv.or

Famed mathematician William Thurston has a good response here (from On Proof and Progress in Mathematics https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/9404236.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/9404236.pdf): "The rapid advance of computers has helped dramatize this point, because computers and people are very different. For instance, when Appel and Haken completed a proof of the 4-color map theorem using a massive automatic computation, it evoked much controversy. I interpret the controversy as having little to do with doubt people had as to the veracity of the theorem or the correctness of the proof. Rather, it reflected a continuing desire for human understanding of a proof, in addition to knowledge that the theorem is true. On a more everyday level, it is common for people first starting to grapple with computers to make large-scale computations of things they might have done on a smaller scale by hand. They might print out a table of the first 10,000 primes, only to find that their printout isn’t something they really wanted after all. They discover by this kind of experience that what they really want is usually not some collection of “answers”—what they want is understanding."