> Why would you factor in salary

Say that it turned out that the total cost of the proof of the Erdős unit-distance conjecture was $50 million.

Then the question really becomes: yes, these models are capable of proving important mathematical results, but at a very high cost. Is it worth it?

If a mathematician applied for a research grant of $50M USD for proving the same thing, they would have been laughed out of the bank.

What's more is that when you have a research grant, you train PhDs and postdocs, you hire new staff, and you disseminate. That is, you get much more value for the money spent.

I'm just curious what the cost is.