I agree with you and also believe this extends to the majority of professions. Even within software development, there are a significant number of people that will only solve the immediate problem in front of them in a stepwise manner, rather than using lateral thinking to evaluate if the problem should be solved in the way that's most familiar to them, or to look at it from a different perspective and solve another problem entirely (e.g. the root cause).
To be fair, the majority of problems are probably addressable without thinking differently. So people get into habit/routine and that's their "job"; thinking otherwise is not a day-to-day operation. To your point, automating the redundant/repetitive problems should allow for creative problem solving where machines don't yet excel.
A lot of school administrators have PhDs, but get one to tell you how they learned about some really cool experimental results at some conference (probably publicized by someone trying to sell them something, incidentally, but that's another problem) and are trying to reproduce them at their school(s).
You'll be in for a treat.
A "treat".
Fun bonus anecdote:
One of my wife's principals was convinced the prayer jar she provided for the staff was effective because over half of the prayers the prior year had been answered. When she told me that story it damn near broke my brain.
>One of my wife's principals was convinced the prayer jar she provided for the staff was effective because over half of the prayers the prior year had been answered.
Depending on the prior probability of the prayers that were answered (and those that weren't), 51% could be plenty to support the efficacy of the prayer jar.
I know, the problem is that she was evidently entirely unaware that without knowing something about the probability of "answered prayers" absent the prayer jar, the simple "over half of all wishes came true" was entirely meaningless. Without more information any number could, potentially, support either conclusion (did/did-not work). This wasn't said in jest, either, if you're wondering (I did).
To be fair, the majority of problems are probably addressable without thinking differently. So people get into habit/routine and that's their "job"; thinking otherwise is not a day-to-day operation. To your point, automating the redundant/repetitive problems should allow for creative problem solving where machines don't yet excel.