I fail to see how this would be qualitatively different from how physics has always been done. We’ve always been using computers to generate new laws to fit observations, except in the past those computers have been our brains, and in the past half-century they’ve increasingly been our brains augmented with artificial computing machines.
Our current lack of progress in physics doesn’t stem from lack of ideas, or even lack of ability to come up with theoretical predictions. We have plenty of ideas. Our lack of progress stems from lack of experimental data. We have a large number of competing explanations and they all work in the same in the infrared limit (physicist-speak for ‘everyday low-energy conditions’) but they have subtle differences in the high-energy limit. Our two main routes to physical evidence have been particle physics measurements and cosmological data. We are not yet able to probe to high enough energies in particle physics to sort out the various theories, and we have far too many uncertainties in cosmological data to substantially help us out.
Maybe better AI in the future will help us with this, but it would have to be incredibly powerful AI.
We have a large number of competing explanations and they all work in the same in the infrared limit (physicist-speak for ‘everyday low-energy conditions’) but they have subtle differences in the high-energy limit.
What are you talking about? I don’t think that’s true at all.
Added: I suppose the parameters of the standard model are subtle difference in the high energy domain, but I don’t think that’s what you mean.
I fail to see how this would be qualitatively different from how physics has always been done. We’ve always been using computers to generate new laws to fit observations, except in the past those computers have been our brains, and in the past half-century they’ve increasingly been our brains augmented with artificial computing machines.
Our current lack of progress in physics doesn’t stem from lack of ideas, or even lack of ability to come up with theoretical predictions. We have plenty of ideas. Our lack of progress stems from lack of experimental data. We have a large number of competing explanations and they all work in the same in the infrared limit (physicist-speak for ‘everyday low-energy conditions’) but they have subtle differences in the high-energy limit. Our two main routes to physical evidence have been particle physics measurements and cosmological data. We are not yet able to probe to high enough energies in particle physics to sort out the various theories, and we have far too many uncertainties in cosmological data to substantially help us out.
Maybe better AI in the future will help us with this, but it would have to be incredibly powerful AI.
What are you talking about? I don’t think that’s true at all.
Added: I suppose the parameters of the standard model are subtle difference in the high energy domain, but I don’t think that’s what you mean.