I think "doing" ML math is a little different than "doing" math math.

With math, on paper say, it is hard to tell if you are doing it right or wrong. You can trick yourself quite easily. A compelling proof can have a huge hole.

You can still trick yourself programming -- in a sense, that is what a bug is -- but it is much harder.

The upshot is, I think it is easier to teach yourself math that is applied to a computer program than math on a piece of paper.