Twenty-five Fields Medallists signed an open letter in September 2026 criticizing OpenAI's claimed solution to the Navier-Stokes problem, reflecting broader STEM concerns about AI replacing human workers. An artist argues that STEM professionals, unlike artists who lost technical roles to photography during the Industrial Revolution, may still find creative and intellectual value in their fields despite AI disruption. The piece examines how visual artists were historically central to scientific and political documentation before photomechanical reproduction made them obsolete within 70 years of photography's 1839 invention.