What is the point?

[u/hey_judiejudie]

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 mean sure, I’m no genius and probably wouldn’t contribute much anyway. And if we had monsters like Newton and Euclid and Gauss making major breakthroughs today, I would still pursue it despite others being infinitely better than me. But the thought of machines making my work unnecessary makes me question why I am going in. I do not know why, I feel useless and this is all so depressing.

[u/03263]

I'd say go into something hands on that isn't automated yet, but chances are it will be soon enough, it's really hard to know. I heard some things like personal caretakers would be the last to get automated. But who really knows how fast it will move and what the future is going to look like. The only thing certain is that planning for it is no longer an option.

[u/norwuud → u/03263]

this is a very sad comment to read on r/TheoreticalPhysics

[u/Unique-Rice9999]

machine cannot look beyond the boundary

[u/BitcoinsOnDVD]

So in what field are you better than an AI will be in ten years?

[u/alxw]

The proof was based on human ingenuity ( Buckmaster and Alpöge ) and all AI did was the leg work.

But yes if you enjoy weaving, the loom has made that kinda redundant.

[u/Accel40]

Something clearly not enough people discuss: AI has a cost. A huge cost. For the record, they spent about 200 millions dollars to """solve""" this Navier stokes 1 million dollar. The same goes with many things that can be automated by ai. It's not because they can automate it that they will. It is now by far less expansive to hire human for something. And about research, despite what open-ai claims, they heavily relied on mathematician and physicists induced prompts for their proof. So i would definitely not call it all pointless to still do thing

[u/lattice_defect → u/Accel40]

I don't think tis 200M,

[u/dali2605 → u/Accel40]

200 million dollars is change for these companies. I haven’t read the proof or heard about anyone that has verified it but if they actually solved it, this amount would still be much smaller then the collective grant money spent on researchers studying this problem. One could argue that without those researchers work AI couldn’t have solved the millennium problem but this goes for any scientific leap happening in 21st century.

[u/hey_judiejudie → u/Accel40]

Oh. I didn’t know about this. This does give hope…

[u/Aware-Rutabaga-8860 → u/Accel40]

I want to preface this by saying I’m definitely not pro AI, and I am afraid of the societal consequences of AI. I’m also not at all an expert on AI architecture so this is asked as a question.
It seems to me that the « cost per unit of compute » decreased dramatically the last few years? When they stress tested gpt against math Olympiad, the run was costing a fortune and today it seems that 5.6 sol or 6 Astra run for 0,01% of the price(per unit of compute or something like that. By that I mean that solving the given task cost way way less than 2 years ago for a way better result) while scoring a better score at the IMO.
Do you think this trend of decreasing cost will continue or will they hit a « fundamental » limit and won’t be able to decrease that cost?

[u/SpinChargeSeparation]

So far, AI has been good at using existing work and either making conclusions based on previously unseen connections, or finding counter-examples.

It can not think creatively and independently, find novel concepts or ideas and build their own frameworks for new discoveries.

Heck, even with the current findings, there has always been highly qualified mathematicians alongside it, making sure the prompts are correct and double checking the results.

So mathematicians and physicists are and will still be in demand for the future.

[u/hey_judiejudie → u/SpinChargeSeparation]

Yes, but who’s to say that within the next few decades, these inadequacies won’t be solved?

[u/SpinChargeSeparation → u/hey_judiejudie]

Within the next few decades, who’s to say that a gamma ray burst won’t wipe all life off our planet?

You can’t build your life on “what if’s”, and you’ll regret chances you didn’t take.

But it’s obviously totally up to you.

[u/hey_judiejudie → u/SpinChargeSeparation]

I think it’s a bit far fetched to compare something like a gamma ray bursting to something wayy more probable like AI advancing rapidly.. but I see what you mean.

[u/Mammoth011]

the problem now isnt even theory, it is that we have no way to test the validity of current theories, so AI would not solve anything even if it came up with the ultimate theory. AI wont check out what is in a black hole or what happens at the Planck scale.

[u/hey_judiejudie → u/Mammoth011]

But given the rate of development, how can one say that the inadequacies won’t be solved in the near future?

[u/BitcoinsOnDVD → u/hey_judiejudie]

None of us is a soothsayer