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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

#111

Post by lamontcg »

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.

That's kinda the whole point.

SpaceX can use an optimization algorithm to hoverslam a rocket booster, but the optimization algorithm didn't really figure it out on its own.

The optimization algorithm was used by human experts to solve the problem.

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

#112

Post by nozzlegear »

steveklabnik wrote: post #88
nozzlegear wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hence Open AI having an author credit. How much precedence is there for machines or tools getting an author credit in research? Genuine question, I don't actually know. Would we give an author credit to e.g. a chimpanzee if it happened to circle the right page of a text book while working with researchers, leading them to a eureka moment?

Not exactly the same thing, but I know of at least two professors that would try to list their cats as co-authors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._D._C._Willard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Knorozov

That is great, thank you!

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

#114

Post by pram »

tjr wrote: post #104
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…

Go enough shoulders down, and someone had to have been the first giant.

Pythagoras is the turtle.

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

#115

Post by _aavaa_ »

ericmay wrote: post #60
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the critical bit (paraphrasing): Humans have worked out the amplitudes for integer n up to n = 6 by hand, obtaining very complicated expressions, which correspond to a “Feynman diagram expansion” whose complexity grows superexponentially in n. But no one has been able to greatly reduce the complexity of these expressions, providing much simpler forms. And from these base cases, no one was then able to spot a…

Still pretty awesome though, if you ask me.

Big difference between “derives new result” and “reproduces something likely in its training dataset”.

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

#116

Post by famouswaffles »

emil-lp wrote: post #100
famouswaffles wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a stupid point then. Are you able to work with a world leading physicist to any significant degree? No

It's like saying: calculator drives new result in theoretical physics (In the hands of leading experts.)

No it's not like saying that at all, which is why Open AI have a credit on the paper.

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

#117

Post by nozzlegear »

famouswaffles wrote: post #96
nozzlegear wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well what do you think ? Do the authors (or a single symbolic one) of pytorch or numpy or insert typically get credits on papers that utilize them heavily ? I don't know! That's why I asked. > Well Clearly these prominent institutions thought GPT's contribution significant enough to warrant an Open AI credit. Contribution is a fitting word, I think, and well chosen. I'm sure OpenAI's contribution was quite large, q…

>I don't know! That's why I asked. If you don't read enough papers to immediately realize it is an extremely rare occurrence then what are you even doing? Why are you making comments like you have the slightest clue of what you're talking about? including insinuating the credit was what...the result of bribery? You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. You've decided to accuse prominent researchers of essen…

Do I need to be credentialed to ask questions or point out the troubling trend of AI grift maxxers like yourself helping Sam Altman and his cronies further the myth of AGI by pretending a machine is a researcher deserving of a research credit? This is marketing, pure and simple. Close the simonw substack for a second and take an objective view of the situation.

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

#118

Post by btown »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #24
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…

This is the critical bit (paraphrasing): Humans have worked out the amplitudes for integer n up to n = 6 by hand, obtaining very complicated expressions, which correspond to a “Feynman diagram expansion” whose complexity grows superexponentially in n. But no one has been able to greatly reduce the complexity of these expressions, providing much simpler forms. And from these base cases, no one was then able to spot a…

It bears repeating that modern LLMs are incredibly capable, and relentless, at solving problems that have a verification test suite. It seems like this problem did (at least for some finite subset of n)!

This result, by itself, does not generalize to open-ended problems, though, whether in business or in research in general. Discovering the specification to build is often the majority of the battle. LLMs aren't bad at this, per se, but they're nowhere near as reliably groundbreaking as they are on verifiable problems.

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

#119

Post by red75prime »

fpgaminer wrote: post #68
bottlepalm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ne…

"Sweat and tears" -> exploration and the training signal for reinforcement learning.

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

#120

Post by stouset »

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…

When chess engines were first developed, they were strictly worse than the best humans. After many years of development, they became helpful to even the best humans even though they were still beatable (1985–1997). Eventually they caught up and surpassed humans but the combination of human and computer was better than either alone (~1997–2007). Since then, humans have been more or less obsoleted in the game of chess.

Five years ago we were at Stage 1 with LLMs with regard to knowledge work. A few years later we hit Stage 2. We are currently somewhere between Stage 2 and Stage 3 for an extremely high percentage of knowledge work. Stage 4 will come, and I would wager it's sooner rather than later.

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