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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

#231

Post by cpard »

supern0va wrote: post #165
cpard wrote: post #126

AI can be an amazing productivity multiplier for people who know what they're doing. This result reminded me of the C compiler case that Anthropic posted recently. Sure, agents wrote the code for hours but there was a human there giving them directions, scoping the problem, finding the test suites needed for the agentic loops to actually work etc etc. In general making sure the output actually works and that it's a s…

>AI can be an amazing productivity multiplier for people who know what they're doing. >[...] >The "AI replaces humans in X" narrative is primarily a tool for driving attention and funding. You're sort of acting like it's all or nothing. What about the the humans that used to be that "force multiplier" on a team with the person guiding the research? If a piece of software required a team of ten to people, and instead…

there's 90% job loss assuming that this is a zero sum type of thing where humans and agents compete for working on a fixed amount of work.

I'm curious why you think I'm acting like it's all or nothing. What I was trying to communicate is the exact opposite, that it's not all or nothing. Maybe it's the way I articulate things, I'm genuinely interested what makes it sound like this.

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

#232

Post by kilroy123 »

Toutouxc wrote: post #217
lovecg wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s have some compassion, a lot of people are freaking out about their careers now and defense mechanisms are kicking in. It’s hard for a lot of people to say “actually yeah this thing can do most of my work now, and barrier of entry dropped to the ground”.

I am constantly seeing this thing do most of my work (which is good actually, I don't enjoy typing code), but requiring my constant supervision and frequent intervention and always trying to sneak in subtle bugs or weird architectural decisions that, I feel with every bone in my body, would bite me in the ass later. I see JS developers with little experience and zero CS or SWE education rave about how LLMs are so muc…

I agree with you on all of it.

But _what if_ they work out all of that in the next 2 years and it stops needing constant supervision and intervention? Then what?

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

#233

Post by gilrain »

Paracompact wrote: post #124
dotancohen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am not a scientific historian, or even a physicist, but IMO relativity has a weak case for being a completely novel discovery. Critique of absolute time and space of Newtonian physics was already well underway, and much of the methodology for exploring this relativity (by way of gyroscopes, inertial reference frames, and synchronized mechanical clocks) were already in parlance. Many of the phenomena that relativity…

In my view, another example would be Gautama Buddha, with Dependent Origination. It’s basically a super early realisation of Process Philosophy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prat%C4%ABtyasamutp%C4%81da https://iep.utm.edu/processp/

Edit: but even it likely relied on his prior experience with nondualistic Hinduisms, of course.

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

#234

Post by lupsasca »

buttered_toast wrote: post #181
lupsasca wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are closely related "MHV amplitudes" which naively obey a really complicated formula, but for which there famously also exists a much simpler "Parke-Taylor formula". Alfredo had derived a complicated expression for these new "single-minus amplitudes" and we were hoping we could find an analogue of the simpler "Parke-Taylor formula" for them.

Thank you for taking the time to reply, I see you might have already answered this elsewhere so it's much appreciated.

My pleasure---thank you for your interest!

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

#235

Post by Paracompact »

godelski wrote: post #173
Paracompact wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a scientific historian, or even a physicist, but IMO relativity has a weak case for being a completely novel discovery. Critique of absolute time and space of Newtonian physics was already well underway, and much of the methodology for exploring this relativity (by way of gyroscopes, inertial reference frames, and synchronized mechanical clocks) were already in parlance. Many of the phenomena that relativity…

> Critique of absolute time and space of Newtonian physics was already well underway This only means Einstein was not alone, it does not mean the results were in distribution. > Many of the phenomena that relativity would later explain under a consistent framework already had independent quasi-explanations hinting at the more universal theory. And this comes about because people are looking at edge cases and trying t…

To be clear, I don't think coming up with relativity was "in distribution" based on the results of the time. I would be exceedingly surprised if an LLM trained on all of the physics up until that point and nothing else would come up with the framework that Einstein did, from such elegant first principles at that. Without handholding from a prompter, I expect an LLM (or non-critical human thinker) would only parrot the general consensus of confusion and non-uniformity that predominated in that era.

I only believe that (1) if it hadn't been Einstein, it would very soon have been someone else using very similar concepts and evidence, (2) "completely novel idea" is a stricter criterion than "not in distribution," and (3) better examples of completely novel ideas from history exist as a benchmark for this sort of things.

> Without a formal study of physics it is really hard to differentiate these kinds of propositions. It can be very hard even with that education. So be careful to not overly abstract and simplify concepts. It'll only deprive you of a lot of beauty and innovation.

I agree, but with the caveat that I think ancestor worship is also an impediment to understanding our intellectual and cultural heritage. Either all of human creativity deserves to be treated sacredly, or none of it does.

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

#236

Post by guluarte »

supern0va wrote: post #165
cpard wrote: post #126

AI can be an amazing productivity multiplier for people who know what they're doing. This result reminded me of the C compiler case that Anthropic posted recently. Sure, agents wrote the code for hours but there was a human there giving them directions, scoping the problem, finding the test suites needed for the agentic loops to actually work etc etc. In general making sure the output actually works and that it's a s…

>AI can be an amazing productivity multiplier for people who know what they're doing. >[...] >The "AI replaces humans in X" narrative is primarily a tool for driving attention and funding. You're sort of acting like it's all or nothing. What about the the humans that used to be that "force multiplier" on a team with the person guiding the research? If a piece of software required a team of ten to people, and instead…

Where I work, we're now building things that were completely out of reach before. The 90% job loss prediction would only hold true if we were near the ceiling of what software can do, but we're probably very, very far from it.

A website that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2000 could be replaced by a wordpress blog built in an afternoon by a teenager in 2015. Did that kill web development? No, it just expanded what was worth building

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

#238

Post by ChrisClark »

computator wrote: post #204

I have a weird long-shot idea for GPT to make a new discovery in physics: Ask it to find a mathematical relationship between some combination of the fundamental physical constants[1]. If it finds (for example) a formula that relates electron mass, Bohr radius, and speed of light to a high degree of precision, that might indicate an area of physics to explore further if those constants were thought to be independent.…

"Please derive and unify all of quantum mechanics and general relativity starting only with the Fine Structure Constant."

;)

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

#239

Post by buttered_toast »

etraql wrote: post #211
lupsasca wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi I am an author of the paper. We believed that a simple formula should exist but had not been able to find it despite significant effort. It was a collaborative effort but GPT definitely solved the problem for us.

Do you also work at OpenAI? A comment pointing that out was flagged by the LLM marketers.

I think it says in the paper that he does, but it's also public knowledge.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-lupsasca-9096a214/

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

#240

Post by randomNumber7 »

Paracompact wrote: post #124
dotancohen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am not a scientific historian, or even a physicist, but IMO relativity has a weak case for being a completely novel discovery. Critique of absolute time and space of Newtonian physics was already well underway, and much of the methodology for exploring this relativity (by way of gyroscopes, inertial reference frames, and synchronized mechanical clocks) were already in parlance. Many of the phenomena that relativity…

Newton himself wrote that we usually deal with relative space and time, but we can imagine absolute time and space.
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