NP problem is not a research interest of AI and ML people. NP problem is in computational theory, most of the AI and ML people don't care about NP because in AI and ML, problems are not well specified. There is very few problems in AI or ML related to NP.

Besides, you don't quit understand the nature of NP problems. Finding a solution of a giving instance of a NP problem doesn't always end-up with a exponential time. In many cases, approximation is good enough. However, in many other cases, approximation is not good enough, i.e: breaking enemies encryption, you can't approximate it.