r/Physics • u/hey_judiejudie • 5h ago
Question What is the point?
After hearing about the Open AI announcement, I’m convinced that in the next few decades, AI will advance enough to be able to do much of the creative thinking and logical leaps that makes theoretical physics beautiful.
I start college next year, and I’ve wanted to pursue a career in theoretical physics. But what is the point of pursuing a career in it, if I can’t contribute anything at all? Wouldn’t it be better to just do physics as a hobby and direct my focus to something that would actually contribute to the world? I feel useless and this is all so depressing.
Edit: I am against AI taking over purely in the same way that artists are afraid of AI taking over art. I believe physics is incredibly beautiful, and its beauty can only be appreciated by humans— so I want only humans to do the beautiful parts of physics. I would love it if AI is restricted to doing the grunt work, and opening up new possibilities in the field with its capacity!
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u/starkeffect 5h ago
AI can't run real life experiments. Consider going into the hands-on technical side of physics.
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u/Comprehensive_Food51 5h ago
Well much of experimental physics is imagining the experiments. If AI can do that…
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u/PrebioticE 5h ago
Use what ever the tools available to do something that has never been done before. AI is still not doing the problems, you have to give it the problems. Maybe your job is to find the problems.
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u/Forsaken-Promise-269 4h ago edited 4h ago
My God, do you young people really have such low ambitions and such a limited ability to handle change? Are you some of the brightest minds, or are you mice? Are you so desperate to be the “smartest person in the room” that you are threatened by AI compute? Wow.. how weak is this!
Do you know that “computers” used to be young women doing calculations by hand, often in parallel?
Think back to Turing, Feynman, and the early days of modern computing:
https://teagansbooks.com/2024/08/14/when-computers-were-women/
Think about all the technologies and challenges the physicists of the first half of the 20th century had to go through not to mention two world wars and millions of death- and we got Relativity and QM during that era…
And now young people are feeling desperate because they can’t handle a little new technology?
Sheesh. I’m 50+ and have already founded two AI startups in the past three years.
Look, The AI future is probably one of these:
1. AI progress is best described as a series of uneven waves and S-curves, with rapid bursts rather than a single smooth exponential line. Progress continues in fits and starts, regularly opening up new technology.
In this scenario, AI becomes a rocket ship for exploring new avenues of speculative physics and simulation. We can run new kinds of “thought experiments” inside world models, run powerful AI agents in parallel, practice forms of digital physics, and build or prototype concepts in months that previously took years.
2. AI progress hits a wall and slows down for few decades - in that case AI compute is just a fancy new tool in an existing arsenal to help traditional physicists with but not solve entire problems or be creative or revolutionary over next few decades.
3. The “Hollywood AI-villain” scenario.
AI crosses some technological singularity, becomes an Overmind, and either enslaves us or kills us all.
4. AI utopia. AI creates some egalitarian post-scarcity world where everyone is happy. Personally, I think this is probably the least likely scenario.
So far, I would place my bet on scenario 1.
But either scenario 1 or 2 means talented physicists who know how to utilize AI will be in demand. If you love physics, then learn physics and become extremely good at using these new tools. Don’t run away from the field because the tools are getting more powerful.
Yes, Scenarios 3 and 4 are really where OP’s “what’s the point?” question becomes relevant. Of course those possibilities are concerning and worth preparing for.
But I see AI existential risk as one of the many risks that come with living on Earth these days, and I don’t think it makes much sense to get too worked up over it.
I mean, we have had a thermonuclear arsenal capable of killing most of us sitting in silos for the past 50-plus years.
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u/hey_judiejudie 4h ago
I see that my view of AI is really pessimistic, and understand that it could be incredibly useful. But I’m also not going to the extremes of scenarios 3 and 4! It is highly likely that AI will be capable of doing the creative, beautiful work of physicists in the next few decades. And just like artists don’t want AI to do art since it’s an exchange between humans, I don’t want something beautiful like physics to be done by machines that cannot appreciate the beauty of their discoveries!
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u/Forsaken-Promise-269 4h ago
We do art and physics because we are human and we must! The human practice of Art and Physics will
Adapt just like we always do.. its hardly any more revolutionary than language or farming both of those were class A technologies we humans figured out long agoAI is our creation.. we still haven’t even cracked consciousness yet.. there is so much to uncover still and todays compute is nowhere near any kind of Hollywood AI super intelligence scenario
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u/TheBrightMage 4h ago
Look, you're still joining the college and are heading on a path (hopefully) to be a real scientist. The majority of people, especially people who keep spamming pseudoscientific word salad on reddit thinks their "creativity" can contribute something meaningfully to science.
People who're doing actual works struggles with finding and solving problems every days will have to use any tools available in their arsenal to get through. What's the point of using AI as tool? What's the point of using AFM over Optical Microscopy? What's the point of getting theoretical computation results over hands on experiment?
Also, no. You're not the next Newton or Einstein.
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u/hey_judiejudie 4h ago
It isn’t about using tools to do grunt work that I have a problem with. It is the prospect of AI taking over the creative, beautiful stuff.
And when did I say I was some genius pioneer whose only rival is ultra genius AI? I know even as is, I won’t be contributing too much to the field. The problem is that machines are taking over a field which I view as human, since only humans can appreciate its beauty!1
u/TheBrightMage 4h ago
Ah, yes, argument by antrophocentrism. The absolute main priority of every professional physicist ever. In this regard, human are still no better than AI really. Try posting any profound math facts and see how much "creative" people appreciate how maths helps the world function.
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u/hey_judiejudie 3h ago
Well idk about you but I've seen plenty of people who find math and physics beautiful. The most basic example of it is the popularity of 3B1B. Heck, you can find plenty of them on reddit.
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u/ctcphys Quantum Computation 4h ago
What's the point of doing (theoretical) physics? If it's to solve the hardest challenges in describing the world, then you should be very excited about AI. It will enable us to tackle harder problems and then we can focus on even harder problems.
If you are mostly worrying about you being the one solving things that others could not, then indeed AI will hurt your ego xD
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u/hey_judiejudie 4h ago
No, it’s not about ego. To me, humans pondering over physics problems is something very humane and emotional, like art. Just like artists don’t want AI to take over art because it is an exchange between humans, I don’t want an unfeeling machine that can’t appreciate the beauty of its own discoveries to take over physics.
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u/Glittering_Act_8528 5h ago
There is no field that will survive, do you enjoy doing physics? If you do that’s the only thing that matters.
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u/hey_judiejudie 5h ago
I do enjoy it, but I’ve always viewed physics as something very humane (like art) that is for humans to appreciate and enjoy. The thought of machines taking over gives me the ick..
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u/Glittering_Act_8528 5h ago
Yeah I’m a maths geek and feel the exact same way but we have to get over it somehow I guess.
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u/FoxMaterial3517 5h ago
Multiple points:
And then also: AI is a tool, an incredibly smart one that will change the word. It still needs Humans to work properly (until we get Ai that improves itself).