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GPT-5.2 derives a new result in theoretical physics

openai.com

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

#281

Post by FranklinJabar »

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…

Surely higher level math is just linear combinations of the syntax and implications of lower level math. LLMs are taught syntax of basically all existing math notation, I assume. Much of math is, after all, just linguistic manipulation and detection of contradiction in said language with a more formal, a priori language.

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

#283

Post by tclancy »

square_usual wrote: post #64

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 hav…

> It's interesting to me that whenever a new breakthrough in AI use comes up,

It's interesting to me that whenever AI gets a bunch of instructions from a reasonably bright person who has a suspicion about something, can point at reasons why, but not quite put their finger on it, we want to credit the AI for the insight.

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

#285

Post by refulgentis »

cxvwK wrote: post #280
turzmo wrote: post #275

Physicist here. Did you guys actually read the paper? Am I missing something? The "key" AI-conjectured formula (39) is an obvious generalization of (35)-(38), and something a human would have guessed immediately. (35)-(38) are the AI-simplified versions of (29)-(32). Those earlier formulae look formidable to simplify by hand, but they are also the sort of thing you'd try to use a computer algebra system for. I'm will…

[dead]

Random anonymous HN driveby claiming something that'd be horrible PR; or the coauthors on the GPT-5.2 paper...and the belief OpenAI isn't aggressively stupid, especially after earlier negative press....gotta say, going with the coauthors, after seeing their credentials.

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

#287

Post by refulgentis »

dakolli wrote: post #268
kilroy123 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dream is that powerful agents trawl through all the research papers looking for diamonds in the rough. They evaluate papers that look interesting and should be looked at more deeply. Then, research ideas as much as they can. Then flag for human review the real possible breakthroughs.

They literally cannot do this, they are not that much different than autocomplete that was in your email 10 years ago, with some transformer NN magic. Stop believing the hype.

Why not?

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

#288

Post by austinwade »

tclancy wrote: post #283
square_usual wrote: post #64

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 hav…

> It's interesting to me that whenever a new breakthrough in AI use comes up, It's interesting to me that whenever AI gets a bunch of instructions from a reasonably bright person who has a suspicion about something, can point at reasons why, but not quite put their finger on it, we want to credit the AI for the insight.

Do you not see how this clearly is an advancement for the field, in that AI does deserve partial credit here in improving humanity’s understanding & innovative capabilities? Can you not mentally extrapolate the compounding of this effect & how AI is directly contributing to an acceleration of humanity’s knowledge acquisition?

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

#289

Post by cman1444 »

tclancy wrote: post #283
square_usual wrote: post #64

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 hav…

> It's interesting to me that whenever a new breakthrough in AI use comes up, It's interesting to me that whenever AI gets a bunch of instructions from a reasonably bright person who has a suspicion about something, can point at reasons why, but not quite put their finger on it, we want to credit the AI for the insight.

If the AI were instead human, that human would almost certainly be cited as a co-author, contributor, or whatever.

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

#290

Post by anon84873628 »

loire280 wrote: post #105
square_usual wrote: post #64

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 hav…

It's easy to fall into a negative mindset when there are legions of pointy haired bosses and bandwagoning CEOs who (wrongly) point at breakthroughs like this as justification for AI mandates or layoffs.

What does "pointy haired" mean? (Presumably not literally?)
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