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A Young Man Used AI to Build a Nuclear Fusor

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Re: A Young Man Used AI to Build a Nuclear Fusor

#21

Post by RansomStark »

pololeono wrote: post #16
fzeroracer wrote: post #7

It seems like every now and then we get someone doing dangerous science experiments in their backyards that threaten not only themselves but their neighbors as well. Brings to mind David Hahn, only worse since with AI the odds of it hallucinating a step and causing a serious problem is much higher.

I don't know, I could imagine that this changes when AI becomes more sensible than the average internet advice. Also I would like to see some evidence how dangerous the experiment with the AI inspired Fusor actually was. I recently read here "hiking in jeans" is dangerous.

I'd be interested in how an LLM could become more sensible than the average internet, they are by definition the average of the internet. I'm waiting for the next major innovation, and given AI's history I might be waiting a long time.

Fusors are somewhat dangerous, they use extremely high voltage, in the thousands to hundred thousand volt range. x-rays become an issue above around 30,000 volts, but they are frequently made by high school students, and I'm not aware of any deaths.

lots of details available here: https://fusor.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=4843

Re: A Young Man Used AI to Build a Nuclear Fusor

#23

Post by lucianbr »

> some people are going to be in for a very uncomfortable time in short order

> it made me feel old and alarmed by the number of new tools at our disposal

> I believe that laptops and PCs will give way to a more novel device rather soon.

> So, er, like, good luck if you’re not paying attention to this stuff.

All I see is some serious effort to hoist some FOMO on me. "Something big is coming soon" is repeated ad nauseam in this article and many many others.

Re: A Young Man Used AI to Build a Nuclear Fusor

#25

Post by exe34 »

RansomStark wrote: post #21
pololeono wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I could imagine that this changes when AI becomes more sensible than the average internet advice. Also I would like to see some evidence how dangerous the experiment with the AI inspired Fusor actually was. I recently read here "hiking in jeans" is dangerous.

I'd be interested in how an LLM could become more sensible than the average internet, they are by definition the average of the internet. I'm waiting for the next major innovation, and given AI's history I might be waiting a long time. Fusors are somewhat dangerous, they use extremely high voltage, in the thousands to hundred thousand volt range. x-rays become an issue above around 30,000 volts, but they are frequent…

> they are by definition the average of the internet.

Are you referring to base models?

Nowadays they also train on stolen books and are further "aligned" based on feedback. I imagine they are already learning to teach based on feedback from users.

Re: A Young Man Used AI to Build a Nuclear Fusor

#26

Post by ngt1287 »

The article sounds like an elaborate infomercial:

"It also excited me. Just spending a couple of hours with HudZah left me convinced that we’re on the verge of someone, somewhere creating a new type of computer with AI built into its core. I believe that laptops and PCs will give way to a more novel device rather soon."

"I’m not sure that people know what’s coming for them. You’re either with the AIs now and really learning how to use them or you’re getting left behind in a profound way."

It would be worth following the money of this submarine article.

Re: A Young Man Used AI to Build a Nuclear Fusor

#28

Post by GistNoesis »

The elephant in the room is that this young man is indeed doing the right thing, he is just too poor to buy the right tools.

How do you think the "real scientists(TM)" work : they use AI tools too.

Do you really think you can design a tokamak Stellarator with pen and paper ?

What good engineers do is click the "topological optimization" button on their physical simulator, and then they build the machine according to the plan the computer make.

Do you really think deep-seek can't use your COMSOL or Ansys multiphysics tool ?

Finite element Method was invented in the 1950s, our more modern AIs use some variants of Physics-Informed Neural Networks to solve the differential equations of physics.

LLM without reinforcement learning won't invent your flying saucer from reading stuff on the internet, but let your local AI play for a day with a MHD simulator https://www.jp-petit.org/science/mhd/m_mhd_e/m_mhd_e.htm and the sky is not the limit.

Re: A Young Man Used AI to Build a Nuclear Fusor

#29

Post by newswasboring »

This paragraph was very uncanny valley for me.

> Eventually, however, HudZah wore Claude down. He filled his Project with the e-mail conversations he’d been having with fusor hobbyists, parts lists for things he’d bought off Amazon, spreadsheets, sections of books and diagrams. HudZah also changed his questions to Claude from general ones to more specific ones. This flood of information and better probing seemed to convince Claude that HudZah did know what he was doing, and the AI began to give him detailed guidance on how to build a nuclear fusor and how not to die while doing it.

Re: A Young Man Used AI to Build a Nuclear Fusor

#30

Post by latexr »

test1235 wrote: post #22

FYI: FortiGuard Intrusion Prevention - Access Blocked Web Page Blocked You have tried to access a web page that is in violation of your Internet usage policy. Category Pornography URL https://www.corememory.com/

I went to check what FortiGuard is:

> FortiGuard Labs provides (…) AI-powered threat intelligence (…)

Ah, that explains it. The article is just a Substack with a custom domain, this sounds like an error on their part, not something the author can or should concern themselves with.

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