On "intelligence traps"

It is probably true that interesting problems are not necessarily (or rather, readily) important. Amanda Askell warns of "intelligence traps", which are a result of "glorified crossword puzzles". So the idea is that many people are working on problems that are  interesting, but will categorically fail the importance test. I do not wish to disagree with this. I think it's a fair observation.

However, some approaches to addressing this could lead to bad results.  The almost obvious downside of the prescription finds relevance in fields like pure mathematics. I'm referring to problems that can only be justified of being studied aesthetically. These problems tend to turn out to be extremely useful in future times. And so I do not see how we are to advocate only for the study of problems whose importance is vivid and accessible.  

Another concern is the more general pitfall of promoting a culture of focusing solely on addressing what we get to recognize as important problems. Creative inquiry requires deeper, freer, and more comprehensive approaches to choosing problems to work on. I think it will be fruitful to start a discussion on this.