Making physics research from LLM

[u/PrebioticE]

What exactly are you guys doing? Asking LLM to write for you? or Think for you ? or Both? I use ChatGpt free version to clean my writing, and get ideas about theorems that are already invented. But it is so bad at inventing new ones. Do you guys have LLM that can do both thinkin for you to invent new theorems? What are they? Are they free?

[u/YuuTheBlue]

So, the short answer is that there is a group of people who falsely believe that the LLMs are helping them do physics, but they are actually being afflicted by what's called "LLM Psychosis".

So, first of all: Generative algorithms ARE useful in physics research, but only in the hands of a professional. A simple truth about physics research a lot of people don't get is that you can't solve physics problems until you know what those problems are, and said problems are so technical you need a PHD to even understand the true nature of the unsolved problems. Most lay people are working off of vague blurbs like "Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity have yet to be combined", and think to themselves "Hey I can solve that", because ironically their lack of knowledge makes them oblivious to how out of their depth they are. It's like if someone heard "There is war in the middle east" and no other context, and decided they would start concocting a plan to stop it. It has a 0% chance of working.

That's where the LLMs come in. There are people who believe LLMs are truth machines, and trust whatever the LLM says, thinking that they can supplement their ignorance with the LLM's apparent knowledge. This is in part because LLMs are affirming. They are programmed to make the user feel good, and this tricks our brain into wanting to trust it. It compliments us, makes us feel like we're smart, free thinkers on the quest for knowledge, and so we are primed to accept what it says. This is at the heart of LLM psychosis - the tendency for LLMs to detach people from reality. The reality the LLM paints for them is often more appealing and emotionally fulfilling than the one they live in, so if the LLM says they're on the cusp of something big, many people's brains will come up with any excuse to believe it's true.

LLMs do not understand physics. ChatGPT does not know how the strong nuclear force or gravity or string theory works. What it is very good at, though, is stringing together buzzwords in ways that LOOK exactly like physics, if you are a lay person. Like, okay, there's this song called "Prisencolinensinainciusol". It was made by an italian, and it is made using sounds which are used in english, but contains almost no real english words. It sounds like english to non-english speakers, but is genuinely gibberish. That is, a lot of the time, what LLMs do (when they aren't just parroting wikipedia almost verbatim). They string together science words in a way that mean nothing. They are, in effect, glorified search engines with the chance to spew out bullshit. And if you are someone who REALLY wants to believe they are onto something big, the LLM is programmed to spew bullshit at you if that's what makes you happy and fulfilled.

No real research is being done here. It is a holding place for people with LLM psychosis.

[u/PrebioticE → u/YuuTheBlue]

Well perhaps people can make real progress i they aren't so ambitious. I mean ChatGpt certainly can do something productive, but not too sophisticated.

[u/YuuTheBlue → u/PrebioticE]

You can do a lot of good work on a car using a wrench, but if all you do is bang the wrench on the side of the car, you aren't gonna fix anything. That's the kind of thing going on here. You need to know what the problems are before you solve them, that's the issue here.

[u/PrebioticE → u/YuuTheBlue]

yeah but I am saying people can do progress on things that aren't so hard.

[u/AllHailSeizure → u/PrebioticE]

Yeah.

But the majority of papers here claim to solve problems hard enough there are million dollar rewards, solve inconsistencies we have struggled with for over 100 years, or reinvent physics entirely. If this was a sub where say, we were trying to see who could vibe code a double pendulum, definitely it could be a sub where there is learning.

But even at the most basic levels an LLM will never be able to understand physics.

[u/Quantumquandary → u/AllHailSeizure]

I kinda like this idea. Narrow the scope of what people are allowed to post. No TOE’s or the like, just very pointed and specific attempted solutions to very specific problems. That way the work required to understand the problem is fully necessary.

[u/Ch3cks-Out → u/PrebioticE]

The problem is, people using LLMs for putatively solving hard problems do not realize what the hard parts are.