As a chess fan, 100% this. We have known for the last ~15 years who the best human chess player is, and that he will lose against stockfish on his phone. But chess survives because of the human characters involved, the rivalries and dramas, watching two people trying to overcome each other under insane pressure, and sometimes coming up with something astonishing. In short - it's a sport.

There is no equivalent in math.

I guess part of the problem is that being against being against anything for economic interests doesn't really rally anyone to your cause; everyone has to make a living doing something productive for society, and professions have come and gone all the time due to technological advances. In fact, when one thinks about it, the people that are losing their professions now were major contributors to others losing their form of income. Often people talk about how they can use technological/programming/IT skills to make some secretary or administrative assistant's job obsolete. So most people just don't feel a lot of sympathy when people complain that AI are going to take those people's jobs.

That's correct. As far as I know nodody builds any kind of science or technology on top of chess, but mathematics is at the base of most science and technology. It would be horrible if we prevented AI from solving mathematics problems, just because mathematicians want to solve them by themselves the "hard way".

>Nobody will sit to watch two chess programs compete, or analyze their tactics.

I know nothing about chess yet I dare say that I'd doubt this. Surely chess enthusiasts would be interested in analyzing how a superior chess program came out victorious, no?

erm actually, chess tournaments rose in popularity and more people watch now than ever