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GPT-5.2 derives a new result in theoretical physics

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Re: GPT-5.2 derives a new result in theoretical physics

#61

Post by palmotea »

name_taken_duh wrote: post #39
kristopolous wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they probably also acknowledge pytorch, numpy, R ... but we don't attribute those tools as the agent who did the work. I know we've been primed by sci-fi movies and comic books, but like pytorch, gpt-5.2 is just a piece of software running on a computer instrumented by humans.

And we are just a system running on carbon-based biology in our physics computer run by whomever. What makes us special, to say that we are different than GPT-5.2?

> And we are just a system running on carbon-based biology in our physics computer run by whomever. What makes us special, to say that we are different than GPT-5.2?

Do you really want to be treated like an old PC (dismembered, stripped for parts, and discarded) when your boss is done with you (i.e. not treated specially compared to a computer system)?

But I think if you want a fuller answer, you've got a lot of reading to do. It's not like you're the first person in the world to ask that question.

Re: GPT-5.2 derives a new result in theoretical physics

#62

Post by epolanski »

outlace wrote: post #11

The headline may make it seem like AI just discovered some new result in physics all on its own, but reading the post, humans started off trying to solve some problem, it got complex, GPT simplified it and found a solution with the simpler representation. It took 12 hours for GPT pro to do this. In my experience LLM’s can make new things when they are some linear combination of existing things but I haven’t been to g…

Serious questions, I often hear about this "let the LLM cook for hours" but how do you do that in practice and how does it manages its own context? How doesn't it get lost at all after so many tokens?

Re: GPT-5.2 derives a new result in theoretical physics

#63

Post by johnfn »

dotancohen wrote: post #59
randomtoast wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I haven’t been to get them to do something totally out of distribution yet from first principles Can humans actually do that? Sometimes it appears as if we have made a completely new discovery. However, if you look more closely, you will find that many events and developments led up to this breakthrough, and that it is actually an improvement on something that already existed. We are always building on the shou…

Relativity comes to mind. You could nitpick a rebuttal, but no matter how many people you give credit, general relativity was a completely novel idea when it was proposed. I'd argue for special relatively as well.

Even if I grant you that, surely we’ve moved the goal posts a bit if we’re saying the only thing we can think of that AI can’t do is the life’s work of a man who’s last name is literally synonymous with genius.

Re: GPT-5.2 derives a new result in theoretical physics

#64

Post by square_usual »

It's interesting to me that whenever a new breakthrough in AI use comes up, there's always a flood of people who come in to handwave away why this isn't actually a win for LLMs. Like with the novel solutions GPT 5.2 has been able to find for erdos problems - many users here (even in this very thread!) think they know more about this than Fields medalist Terence Tao, who maintains this list showing that, yes, LLMs have driven these proofs: https://github.com/teorth/erdosproblems/wiki/AI-contribution...

Re: GPT-5.2 derives a new result in theoretical physics

#65

Post by slopusila »

Sharlin wrote: post #48
emil-lp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"GPT did this" . Authored by Guevara (Institute for Advanced Study), Lupsasca (Vanderbilt University), Skinner (University of Cambridge), and Strominger (Harvard University). Probably not something that the average GI Joe would be able to prompt their way to... I am skeptical until they show the chat log leading up to the conjecture and proof.

I'm a big LLM sceptic but that's… moving the goalposts a little too far. How could an average Joe even understand the conjecture enough to write the initial prompt? Or do you mean that experts would give him the prompt to copy-paste, and hope that the proverbial monkey can come up with a Henry V? At the very least posit someone like a grad student in particle physics as the human user.

hey, GPT, solve this tough conjecture I've read about on Quanta. make no mistakes

Re: GPT-5.2 derives a new result in theoretical physics

#66

Post by epolanski »

RandomLensman wrote: post #36
bpodgursky wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to be rude but like, maybe you should pre-register some statement like "LLMs will not be able to do X" in some concrete domain, because I suspect your goalposts are shifting without you noticing. We're talking about significant contributions to theoretical physics. You can nitpick but honestly go back to your expectations 4 years ago and think — would I be pretty surprised and impressed if an AI could do…

I don't know enought about theoretical physics: what makes it a significant contribution there?

Not every contribution has immediate impact.

Re: GPT-5.2 derives a new result in theoretical physics

#68

Post by fpgaminer »

bottlepalm wrote: post #26
outlace wrote: post #11

The headline may make it seem like AI just discovered some new result in physics all on its own, but reading the post, humans started off trying to solve some problem, it got complex, GPT simplified it and found a solution with the simpler representation. It took 12 hours for GPT pro to do this. In my experience LLM’s can make new things when they are some linear combination of existing things but I haven’t been to g…

Is every new thing not just combinations of existing things? What does out of distribution even mean? What advancement has ever made that there wasn’t a lead up of prior work to it? Is there some fundamental thing that prevents AI from recombining ideas and testing theories?

> Is every new thing not just combinations of existing things?

If all ideas are recombinations of old ideas, where did the first ideas come from? And wouldn't the complexity of ideas be thus limited to the combined complexity of the "seed" ideas?

I think it's more fair to say that recombining ideas is an efficient way to quickly explore a very complex, hyperdimensional space. In some cases that's enough to land on new, useful ideas, but not always. A) the new, useful idea might be _near_ the area you land on, but not exactly at. B) there are whole classes of new, useful ideas that cannot be reached by any combination of existing "idea vectors".

Therefore there is still the necessity to explore the space manually, even if you're using these idea vectors to give you starting points to explore from.

All this to say: Every new thing is a combination of existing things + sweat and tears.

The question everyone has is, are current LLMs capable of the latter component. Historically the answer is _no_, because they had no real capacity to iterate. Without iteration you cannot explore. But now that they can reliably iterate, and to some extent plan their iterations, we are starting to see their first meaningful, fledgling attempts at the "sweat and tears" part of building new ideas.

Re: GPT-5.2 derives a new result in theoretical physics

#69

Post by verdverm »

buttered_toast wrote: post #43
verdverm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Absolutely no way this is true right? Ilya left around the time 4o was released. I can't imagine they haven't had a single successful run since then.

When's the last time they talked about it?

I heard this from people who know more than me

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