and it seemed likely that solving them would require major breakthroughs If building a machine that solves these kinds of problems isn't a "major breakthrough,

and it seemed likely that solving them would require major breakthroughs If building a machine that solves these kinds of problems isn't a "major breakthrough," I don't know what is. Is the objection merely that it came from engineers rather than mathematicians? If so, there's plenty of room for contributions from many fields. The best thing a mathematician can do to advance their art, at this point, is to drop whatever they're doing and work on AI.