Will AI chatbots replace physicists?

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Physics.

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World. Hello and welcome to the
Physics World Stories Podcast.

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I'm Andrew G. Lester, and I'm
suffering a little bit with hay fever.

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So I'll try and keep my voice to a minimum
as we explore the influence of chat

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G p T and other AI bots on
the lives of physicists.

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We'll focus on how physics education may
change as a response to these chatbots,

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but we'll also look at how physics
as a discipline may change.

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What are the skills that
future physicists will need,

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and what are the tasks that may be
lost to artificial intelligence?

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Later we'll hear from a student whose
life as a physicist is really just

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beginning as the world around us changes
as a result of artificial intelligence

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breakthroughs. But first,
we'll hear from Philip Moti.

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But for this conversation to make sense,

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I do need to mention that I'm also a
lecturer in sciences communication.

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Here's Phil Marriott.

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I'm a physicist at University
of Nottingham. I've been
here a very long time.

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Actually next year I'll be
in Nottingham for 30 years.

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So as well as the lecturing side of
things, which I really do enjoy there,

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there are research focuses
on single atom manipulation,

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single molecule manipulation
with scanning, probe microscopes,

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looking at the forces
between atoms. Ultimately,

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what I sometimes describe it as though
this is a little bit more applied than

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really what we're going for, it's
really quite fundamental. Researches.

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Can we do 3D printing with atoms? So
can we build structures up atom by atom?

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So there's a lot of interest as well
within the group and machine learning

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methods. Um, so chat,

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G p t and g p t four and things
like that are certainly of

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interest. The the problem is
with G P T four, it's, um,

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like the success of the chat G P T,
but they've been a great deal more, um,

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uh, how can I put it?
Closed door about it.

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So in terms of how it's been
trained, in terms of just what, uh,

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you know, parameter space, there
is just what types of, of network.

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Um, it's obviously one of these
pre generative transformer models,

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which is where the G P T
thing comes from. Um, uh,

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but in terms of beyond that, they're
getting a little bit more, um,

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proprietary about things.

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So it's actually quite difficult to
tell what's going on. It's interesting,

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we've evolved to the point where our
artificial neural networks are just

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as complicated and impossible
to understand as the
organic neural networks in

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our heads. So in terms of all the layers.

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I wanted to know why AI
bots such as chat G P T,

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are significant from
a physics perspective.

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How can they help
physicists in their work?

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But I also wanted to get to the heart
of where some of the fears come from.

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They, the interesting thing
from physics perspective, it,

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it's now capable of interpreting images.

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Its spatial reasoning seems to be a heck
of a lot better than shot G P T. Um,

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and it's one paper I've just
pulled off the archive, um,

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said that has has put uh,

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G P T four through its paces on
something called the force concept

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inventory,

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which is generally if you want to
test the efficacy of different, um,

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undergraduate courses, particularly
first year courses, Newton's laws,

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kinematics, et cetera,

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you give them this F c I force
concept inventory at the start,

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you give them at the end and you hope
that you've actually had a positive

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influence on them. Chat G P T got
28, sorry, not chat. G P T chat.

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G P T actually got about
a 50% score g PT four.

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First time it saw that, uh, inventory,

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that set of questions got 28 outta
30, which is rather scary <laugh>.

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So it can increasingly do physics.

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<Laugh>. But why is that scary?

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Uh, it's interesting, um, in terms of

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it's both scary and very impressive,

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I guess scary almost in an impressive
sense. I think we've got a,

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there's an awful lot of hand
ringing and there's an awful lot of,

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let's let's try and, um,
shut this down mixture.

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Students don't get access to it, let's
ban it. That's obviously not gonna work.

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It's a really powerful tool,

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but we have to learn
how to exploit it. Um,

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there's a broader question as well in
that, you know, even if we do ban it,

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what's the point in sending students
out into the big bad world with skills

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that chat that that G P
T for and its successors,

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you know, can just,

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they can do it in a fraction of the
time a student could do it or a graduate

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could do it. We have to be
giving them skillsets that

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compliment what an AI can do
otherwise, what's the point of us?

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What is the point of us,
you know, more tangibly,

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what do physicists now who are,
you know, going through education,

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what should they be?

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What skills should they be learning so
that they're still needed in 2040 or

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beyond?

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I think the,

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the fun most fundamental
skill we can give them is not

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how to, you know, uh, think about
and write down a Hamiltonian.

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It's not to think about how they're gonna
do some problem in quantum mechanics

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or classical fields or how to
do one bit of Dave gra or curl.

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It's how to educate themselves. That's,

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that's the skill we really
should be teaching them.

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That's to have that
independence, self-reliance,

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resilience to be able
to teach themselves. Um,

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obviously we have to do that
within the context of physics.

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We're teaching physics,
but the, the thing is,

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if we're playing catch up really with
the technology and we're gonna lose,

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we really are gonna lose.
Cuz it's, it's developing.

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I know exponentially is a word that's
thrown around a return that's thrown

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around a great deal,

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but I think it's pretty clear
it's developing exponentially and

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yeah, I think we radically need to
change what we're doing. You know,

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the old style exam question of
please regurgitate pages 42 to

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47 of your notes, this derivation,
that doesn't work anymore.

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And it didn't work when I was a
undergraduate or any of us were an

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undergraduate.

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I remember clearly in third
year being able to do all

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the equations in terms of
minority and ma majority, um,

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carrier occurrence in a
P junction. You asked me,

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sit me down and ask me to explain in
a few sentences what is a P junction,

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how does it work? I don't know, but
I can regurgitate those derivations.

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So we have to think, yeah,

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we radically need to change things. Yeah.

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It's an interesting one.
I I think back to sort of,

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I dunno what March, 2020 with
Covid on the, you know, suddenly,

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uh, arriving and I conversations happening
at universities that were sort of,

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you know, well maybe by January
we'll be back to normal.

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And the, you know, how that changed
the way that we had to teach and,

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and the way we had to do things.
It was kind of, you know,

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one thing, but this feels like we,

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we don't know where if church G B
T four, as you say, exponential,

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if church G B T four can do what it
is just being talked about doing,

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then what does 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 do?

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And so we can't plan now
based on what church G B T

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and others can do now. Yeah. Right.

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So I was dis I've gotta admit
with the, with the, uh, you know,

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COVID pandemic et cetera,
and, and all the changes,

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I really thought we had a
massive opportunity to grasp the

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nettle and shake things up.
That's not what happened.

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And some of that might
be her fault in general,

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sort of academic university inertia,

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but a lot of it's also
coming from the students.

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There is nothing easier for the students
and for us for them to sit in a lecture

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theater among 200 other students and
listen to us drone on for 50 minutes.

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And it's,

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it's really disappointing that that's
seen as the pinnacle of education

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and that's what they want or that's
what they claim to want, they want,

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you know, well, it's not what they claim.

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It's absolutely what
quite a few of them want.

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So I don't wanna generalize
across the board.

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There are others who are keen on the sort
of more interactive approach and sort

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of trying to shake things up a little
bit, but quite a few just wanted,

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I want to go to the lecture
theater, I wanna listen to you,

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I wanna note it down and then I wanna
regurgitate it in the exam. The.

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The,

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the simplest solution from an education
point of view seems to me to be that in

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terms of assessment,

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we go back to close book exams that happen
in a room at a particular time. Yeah.

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Is that, is that the only
solution or what, I mean.

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I think it will be disappointing
if that's the only solution,

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but particularly with chat G P T and
whatever G P T models in general,

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when they can, they're
now getting, as I said,

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28 outta 30 on on first
year, uh, physics problems.

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And I also noticed, um,
Scott Aronson, who's, uh,

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quantum computing expert is
bloggers brilliant by the way. Um,

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he set a G P T for his
quantum computing exam paper,

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so fairly advanced quantum
concepts and it got 69, 60 9%.

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So just, just slightly
off a first. Mm-hmm.

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So if the,

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if we continue to set traditional exam
papers, it has to be in, as you say,

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in under those closed conditions.
But that just seems archaic to me.

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What would you like to see then?

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Yeah, that's a very good question.
<laugh>. It's a very, so the,

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I think we need to embed, um, G
P T, um, and these, these models,

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theis of whatever, um, stripe into our,

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our teaching and indeed into
our assessment. I don't know,

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we get to the point where
we tell G P T four, um, to,

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it can already, G P T
four can already do this,

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but it can simulate certain
physical systems, I don't know,

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like a simple pendulum
or a driven pendulum.

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We ask the students to protect the output,

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but we could even do things
like ask G P T to deliberately

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include errors in the physics
and ask for the students to,

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to pick those out. I think we have to be
really open with the students. I think,

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you know, we say use G P T, um, use ais,

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use whatever you can in
terms of writing your report,

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but tell us where you've used that.

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The issue then is, of course,

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let's rely on a great deal in the
students honesty and that might happen.

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So we have to think about
just how we build in use

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of, of these models,
these, these ais into our,

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into our assessment and indeed our
teaching processes where it's great,

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for example, on the teaching side
rather than the assessment side is,

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and I've already used to do,

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do this generates some multiple
choice questions for me on this topic,

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and that's great.

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And then you use those in the class
and with whatever online polling thing.

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So it's a real benefit. Then,
um, there's also things like, um,

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in principle, uh, you
know, close captioning,

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putting captions on videos,

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lecture videos or whatever we could ask
it to do that might still struggle with

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my accent <laugh>. Um, but,
uh, yeah, so there are,

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there are a lot of,
there a lot of benefits.

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But the assessment side
is, is the tricky one,

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as you say. Well, how, where's, where's
your stance? How do you feel? Do you,

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are you happy with traditional
exams as they are? No.

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I'm, I mean, so I don't teach physics.
I teach wildlife filmmaking, podcasting,

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uh, science filmmaking. So it's,

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it's quite easy for me to move into
areas where, at least at the moment,

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artificial intelligence isn't particularly
good in terms of making podcasts and

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films.

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But there's the thing,
why, so that's exactly it.

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So that's the type of thing we should be
asking our students to do. Make videos,

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make short YouTube videos, make podcasts,

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add in a lot more sort of, of
the creative side of things.

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One thing that does drive me up the wall,

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and particularly as my kids
have gone through school,

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is that we have the STEM subjects over
here, and that's for all the drones.

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And over here we have the creative
subjects and there's so much creativity,

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of course, in science, but we need
to exploit that a little bit more in,

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in undergraduate degrees. Yeah.
And indeed postgrad, you know,

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postgraduate degrees.

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As well. No, I, I mean, you're not
gonna find me disagree with that,

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obviously <laugh>. Cause it's my, it's
my bread and butter. But, um, yeah, no,

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I th I mean, it's,

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it seems to me though that there's
possibly a time in the future where,

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you know, podcasts are being generated
by artificial intelligence. I,

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I thought maybe they're, but
maybe they're not that good.

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Oh, I think there's a time
coming. Um, there's a,

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in the not too distant future where
if I want to generate a lecture video,

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I type, I give it some,

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some video of me and the key
themes and it generates a deep f

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I don't think that time is too far off.

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No. Would you use that.

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00:13:15,470 --> 00:13:19,710
<Laugh>? No, I wouldn't. For the same
reason that I wouldn't, I like to write,

223
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um, and I wouldn't, I wouldn't use,

224
00:13:24,150 --> 00:13:28,790
I know this is increasingly common to
use chat G P T or g p t four to actually

225
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write the introductions to papers.

226
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Journals have said that
they're not gonna accept that.

227
00:13:32,490 --> 00:13:37,190
But I've read quite a few blog posts and
quite a few articles where people are

228
00:13:37,190 --> 00:13:41,510
freely admitted. They've used G P T
four in some sort of creative sense.

229
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And that doesn't sit well
with me cuz it's essentially

230
00:13:46,440 --> 00:13:47,273
plagiarism.

231
00:13:47,680 --> 00:13:50,190
We've had essay mills
for some time though,

232
00:13:50,190 --> 00:13:53,110
and maybe the people who make essay
mills should be the most worried. Cause.

233
00:13:53,110 --> 00:13:56,830
They don't need that. Oh, they are.
They really are. So it, it, but again,

234
00:13:57,220 --> 00:14:02,030
there's, there's, um, some on
the education side actually,

235
00:14:02,050 --> 00:14:06,550
the legal, well they would claim the
legal as well, allegedly <laugh>. Um,

236
00:14:07,370 --> 00:14:09,630
um, but Eva Can Academy, for example,

237
00:14:09,850 --> 00:14:14,560
is going to use G P T four
as a virtual tutor. So it's,

238
00:14:14,790 --> 00:14:18,520
it's, um, and that, that's
also a good idea. In fact,

239
00:14:18,580 --> 00:14:23,160
we could use G P T four
as a virtual shooter in

240
00:14:23,470 --> 00:14:27,200
sort of real time in a, in a
classroom or indeed in a lab.

241
00:14:28,340 --> 00:14:32,790
It's, you know, the one is a big issue
in, in, if you've got a class, I, um,

242
00:14:32,790 --> 00:14:36,190
one of my first jobs here was to
revamp her second year, uh, lab.

243
00:14:36,530 --> 00:14:41,090
And I was second year, uh, lab
organizer for, oh God, seven years,

244
00:14:41,090 --> 00:14:42,130
eight years, I can't remember.

245
00:14:42,590 --> 00:14:45,530
And one of the issues is always
having enough demonstrators.

246
00:14:45,780 --> 00:14:49,170
Cause particularly in a Friday afternoon
when the experiments aren't working and

247
00:14:49,450 --> 00:14:53,480
14 hands are up, you're gonna, if we
had a sort of virtual lab assistant,

248
00:14:53,480 --> 00:14:56,200
particularly now because
it can interpret images,

249
00:14:56,340 --> 00:14:58,960
you could almost envision <laugh> a a,

250
00:14:59,360 --> 00:15:03,760
a situation whereby the student takes a
a photo or takes a video of this piece

251
00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:06,280
of kid isn't working. What
are your suggestions? So.

252
00:15:06,280 --> 00:15:08,760
Uh, can we just step away from education
for a bit? Because there's, it's,

253
00:15:08,830 --> 00:15:11,440
it's not just gonna affect
physicists who are learning. Is it,

254
00:15:11,440 --> 00:15:14,600
it's gonna affect physicists who
are, uh, in practice, isn't it?

255
00:15:14,750 --> 00:15:18,680
It's interesting, this paper that I, um,
just from the York, a guy called, um,

256
00:15:18,850 --> 00:15:21,920
Colin G West who's at the
University of Colorado,

257
00:15:22,700 --> 00:15:27,080
and it's was uploaded actually just
April, April the 16th. There's a great,

258
00:15:27,220 --> 00:15:28,880
the final paragraph of his paper,

259
00:15:29,130 --> 00:15:31,480
which is well worth reading
and get in the archive.

260
00:15:31,550 --> 00:15:33,960
I'll just give everybody the
tightly they wanna chase it up.

261
00:15:33,960 --> 00:15:37,800
It's advances in apparent conceptual
physics reasoning in G P T four.

262
00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:40,820
And the final paragraph is ultimately,

263
00:15:40,820 --> 00:15:44,540
perhaps what is most intriguing
is what G P T four tells us.

264
00:15:44,560 --> 00:15:46,380
Not about the future of our classrooms,

265
00:15:46,680 --> 00:15:49,940
but about our future conceptions
of physics as a discipline.

266
00:15:50,780 --> 00:15:52,780
G p t four succeeds at physics tasks,

267
00:15:52,850 --> 00:15:57,100
even though it is only explicitly
programmed to emulate human speech and not

268
00:15:57,100 --> 00:16:00,340
provided directly with any of the formal
structure of mathematics or the laws of

269
00:16:00,340 --> 00:16:02,140
physics. So it's,

270
00:16:02,770 --> 00:16:07,340
it's changing not only how we teach,
but it will change how we do research.

271
00:16:07,400 --> 00:16:11,500
In fact, the, the computer scientists
are already talking about, you know,

272
00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:16,580
coding will evolve to the point where
it's prompt engineering, you, you,

273
00:16:16,580 --> 00:16:20,100
you engineer the right prompts to
feed to an a AI to give you the code.

274
00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:25,500
And we're again, probably
not too far off. In fact,

275
00:16:25,520 --> 00:16:29,780
in some cases it's already doing this
where you feed the data and it picks out

276
00:16:29,780 --> 00:16:33,860
correlations in that
data and it's okay that,

277
00:16:33,860 --> 00:16:34,940
that you can sort of accept.

278
00:16:35,120 --> 00:16:38,860
But then it goes the further step and
comes up with a physical model to explain

279
00:16:39,700 --> 00:16:43,520
tho those, those correlations.
That's very close, I would say.

280
00:16:44,260 --> 00:16:48,350
And then again, where does
that leave us <laugh>?

281
00:16:49,090 --> 00:16:53,430
So, so if we're gonna work alongside
these things, we need to find,

282
00:16:55,060 --> 00:16:56,260
I guess it's again that,

283
00:16:56,260 --> 00:16:59,780
that that collaboration between the
artificial neuronets and the organic

284
00:16:59,850 --> 00:17:03,900
neuronets, we will complement
each other and we'll hopefully,

285
00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:08,810
I'd like to think that
it's, it's creativity.

286
00:17:08,910 --> 00:17:13,290
The AI's creativity will be
sort of complimenting ours.

287
00:17:13,290 --> 00:17:18,010
It works in a slightly different
way, perhaps even then. It's,

288
00:17:18,080 --> 00:17:19,170
it's strange thing, you know,

289
00:17:19,170 --> 00:17:22,090
we've got billions upon
billions of neurons in there.

290
00:17:22,090 --> 00:17:26,010
You've got effectively
billions upon billions of
artificial neurons for the, um,

291
00:17:26,590 --> 00:17:30,600
for some of these very sophisticated
models. What's the difference?

292
00:17:31,500 --> 00:17:35,000
We could get into a <laugh> bit of
an existential crisis here, <laugh>.

293
00:17:36,150 --> 00:17:39,120
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I, so like if you are,

294
00:17:39,300 --> 00:17:43,760
if you're working at LIGO or you're
working at cern or is this affecting you?

295
00:17:44,360 --> 00:17:49,040
I, I think it could be in terms of, of
data analysis in terms of, it's already,

296
00:17:49,420 --> 00:17:54,200
so we're trying to build in different
neural nets into what we do,

297
00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:57,720
which is all about image
interpretation and, oh,

298
00:17:57,860 --> 00:18:01,360
at least partly about image
interpretation, but also
about spectral analysis.

299
00:18:01,580 --> 00:18:04,840
So looking for correlations
in different spectra.

300
00:18:04,840 --> 00:18:06,320
There's already been a couple of papers,

301
00:18:07,200 --> 00:18:12,040
a number of papers published over
the last few years where they fed

302
00:18:12,800 --> 00:18:17,470
a lot of data over, say the
course of a decade to, uh,

303
00:18:18,390 --> 00:18:23,110
unsupervised neural net and asked it to
find the correlations and the data that

304
00:18:23,110 --> 00:18:27,230
humans didn't spot. And there's actually
been a nature paper published on this,

305
00:18:27,230 --> 00:18:30,750
whether the AI spotted those
correlations that we didn't spot.

306
00:18:33,260 --> 00:18:38,160
So I think it's, it's like all these
things, it's not gonna be of, you know,

307
00:18:38,410 --> 00:18:39,880
black or white issue. It's gonna sort,

308
00:18:39,880 --> 00:18:43,280
everything's gonna sort of fall in that
gray area where we have some sort of

309
00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:45,440
convergence, I hope. Well,

310
00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:49,960
it's either that or really or AI
overloads are gonna take over <laugh>

311
00:18:50,260 --> 00:18:50,960
doomed.

312
00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:53,640
<Laugh>. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Are you a science fiction fan?

313
00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:57,640
I am, yeah. I'm a big Star Trek fan.
Oh, okay. For one thing. Yeah. Okay.

314
00:18:57,980 --> 00:19:02,680
But I mean, should we be watching,

315
00:19:03,180 --> 00:19:08,160
you know, 2001, um, ex Machina mm-hmm.

316
00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:09,160
<affirmative> and thinking
mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

317
00:19:09,700 --> 00:19:10,533
No, that's a classic.

318
00:19:10,570 --> 00:19:11,280
Isn't it? Both.

319
00:19:11,280 --> 00:19:13,200
Of those are classics, of
course. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

320
00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:15,760
Yeah. Her, you know, this, there's,

321
00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:18,120
there's a number of films out
there about this, this topic.

322
00:19:18,420 --> 00:19:22,440
How close are they to sort of
the reality that we're gonna see?

323
00:19:22,580 --> 00:19:25,720
If you'd asked me 10 years ago,
I'd said, oh, that's just so,

324
00:19:26,020 --> 00:19:29,040
so many centuries ahead now. Um,

325
00:19:29,690 --> 00:19:34,320
we're they're pretty close, I would
say. I would say they're pretty close.

326
00:19:34,900 --> 00:19:37,750
And, um, yeah, it's,

327
00:19:38,020 --> 00:19:41,950
well already we've had Musk at Ireland
about, I dunno how many it is in total,

328
00:19:42,110 --> 00:19:44,790
a thousand, um, thought leaders as I,

329
00:19:44,850 --> 00:19:49,150
I'm sure they'd like to
describe themselves, um, call
for sort of moratorium on,

330
00:19:49,170 --> 00:19:51,310
on AI research. So it's,

331
00:19:52,930 --> 00:19:56,970
I think that's misguided
as well. Cuz again,

332
00:19:56,970 --> 00:19:58,770
trying has shut it down for one thing,

333
00:19:59,030 --> 00:20:02,010
you'll just drive stuff underground.

334
00:20:02,510 --> 00:20:06,850
And plus Musk with his Neurolink
stuff, which is not the most open, um,

335
00:20:07,130 --> 00:20:09,170
research platform in the world, um,

336
00:20:09,310 --> 00:20:12,610
is it's just a little bit hypocritical
for him to call for a moratorium.

337
00:20:13,190 --> 00:20:17,890
So yeah, it's, I, in terms
of the science fiction,

338
00:20:18,240 --> 00:20:22,490
yeah, I think there's lots that
we can learn from the dystopian

339
00:20:23,650 --> 00:20:25,850
scenarios in some science
fiction novels. Yeah.

340
00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:29,170
Whether we would or not is another
question, isn't it? I mean, I've,

341
00:20:29,370 --> 00:20:30,010
I dunno about you.

342
00:20:30,010 --> 00:20:34,730
I've read Red Ready Player One and I
can see that happening right before our

343
00:20:34,730 --> 00:20:38,410
eyes at this particular moment, so I
don't see why. Yeah, I mean they, it's,

344
00:20:38,560 --> 00:20:41,450
it's all very well and good
academic sitting around saying,

345
00:20:41,670 --> 00:20:44,010
we need to work out how
to do this. But, you know,

346
00:20:44,790 --> 00:20:49,610
so are the other people who
are maybe not as motivated

347
00:20:49,610 --> 00:20:50,443
in the same way?

348
00:20:50,880 --> 00:20:54,170
Precisely Absolutely. And
Ready Player one. Of course,

349
00:20:54,610 --> 00:20:58,410
I was bitterly disappointed with the
movie because they stuck out the bit about

350
00:20:58,480 --> 00:20:59,210
Rush.

351
00:20:59,210 --> 00:21:01,290
<Laugh>. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

352
00:21:03,050 --> 00:21:06,450
I was so happy of Brooke
that included Rush's 2112.

353
00:21:06,450 --> 00:21:10,490
There's a dystopian future for you as
well. Wow. Um, as a core part of the plot.

354
00:21:10,730 --> 00:21:11,280
<laugh>. Yeah.

355
00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:14,450
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, we're gonna go
off topic slightly, but let's do that.

356
00:21:14,450 --> 00:21:16,010
So have you seen them live Rush?

357
00:21:16,830 --> 00:21:19,730
Oh, lots of times, yeah. Oh, you
a fan as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

358
00:21:19,730 --> 00:21:19,930
Yeah.

359
00:21:19,930 --> 00:21:22,090
Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, brilliant. Yeah. Um,

360
00:21:22,530 --> 00:21:26,050
I saw them four times on the time machine
tour cause they did moving pictures in

361
00:21:26,070 --> 00:21:30,010
its entirety. Brilliant.
So, um, favorite Mike? So.

362
00:21:30,010 --> 00:21:34,650
The conversation did slightly veer
off at this moment as we went into

363
00:21:34,830 --> 00:21:38,450
our favorite concerts by
the Canadian Rock Band Rush.

364
00:21:38,710 --> 00:21:42,850
And as interesting as I'm sure you'd find
that we did return to the conversation

365
00:21:42,850 --> 00:21:47,830
of artificial intelligence. So I did
speak to somebody who, who signed that,

366
00:21:48,210 --> 00:21:51,150
um, that letter the moratorium
with, with Elon Musk.

367
00:21:51,150 --> 00:21:54,910
It wa it wasn't Elon Musk that I spoke
to <laugh>, but it was someone else who,

368
00:21:54,950 --> 00:21:55,910
I won't, I won't name it.

369
00:21:55,910 --> 00:21:59,430
And they said that essentially
that was a line in the sand.

370
00:21:59,660 --> 00:22:03,390
They didn't think it was gonna change
anything. It was just to say, look,

371
00:22:03,390 --> 00:22:05,030
we know this is coming and we're alerting.

372
00:22:05,030 --> 00:22:08,630
You. Yeah. It's a pr exercise, really.
Yeah, absolutely. No, I, I, I agree.

373
00:22:08,630 --> 00:22:13,590
And it's, it, I think there
is some value in that,

374
00:22:14,260 --> 00:22:16,990
even if it is just a
sort of pr stunt to, to,

375
00:22:17,050 --> 00:22:21,710
to flag up that we need to
be concerned about this. Um,

376
00:22:22,370 --> 00:22:23,750
but it's, you know,

377
00:22:23,750 --> 00:22:27,790
it really is a question of bolting the
stable door after the horse run away.

378
00:22:29,230 --> 00:22:31,570
Uh, I don't think, you know,
the genie's out of the bottle.

379
00:22:31,770 --> 00:22:36,290
I don't think if I can
pile around <laugh>, um, I,

380
00:22:36,970 --> 00:22:40,810
I don't think it's gonna be
easy to, to stop this as you,

381
00:22:40,870 --> 00:22:45,330
for us exactly the reason you say
you might well have the academic

382
00:22:46,010 --> 00:22:49,650
research in the academic sector shut
down, but not everybody's a good actor.

383
00:22:50,230 --> 00:22:51,063
So yeah.

384
00:22:51,590 --> 00:22:55,810
If you are, um, listening to this
podcast and you are also, you know, in,

385
00:22:55,830 --> 00:22:59,490
in school now, the world
looks very different. We.

386
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:04,490
Need to ensure that we
are preparing kids for a,

387
00:23:05,410 --> 00:23:08,010
a very much a brave new world, um,

388
00:23:08,100 --> 00:23:12,370
where a lot of the skills that we've
taught in the past will be completely

389
00:23:12,530 --> 00:23:13,190
redundant.

390
00:23:13,190 --> 00:23:14,890
So there's creativity,

391
00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:20,450
there's being able to educate
yourself. What does that mean?

392
00:23:20,740 --> 00:23:25,050
Don't rely on, you know, us
to go, there's the textbook,

393
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:29,410
there's what you should read. It's like
I should in principle be able to go,

394
00:23:29,410 --> 00:23:33,750
right. Here's a problem in
quantum mechanics. If you
go, that's where I'd like,

395
00:23:34,370 --> 00:23:36,910
you know, you may say that's just
making us completely redundant,

396
00:23:36,910 --> 00:23:40,470
but it's a question of
how we design the, um,

397
00:23:41,170 --> 00:23:44,750
the activities, how we
design the, the, um,

398
00:23:44,850 --> 00:23:48,120
the assessment as well that will
lead students to that point.

399
00:23:48,260 --> 00:23:51,600
So at least by the time they're in their
final year or the penultimate year,

400
00:23:51,750 --> 00:23:53,800
they're at the point where sort of,

401
00:23:54,020 --> 00:23:58,120
we are almost redundant in
terms of delivering material.

402
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:03,490
It's more about how they seek
out that material process,

403
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:05,770
that material, analyze that,

404
00:24:05,990 --> 00:24:09,880
be that with chat g p t and the like. Um,

405
00:24:10,580 --> 00:24:14,960
and then also present it.
And that's coming back to
the podcast thing, you know,

406
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:19,360
being able to present it, being
able to be persuasive, um,

407
00:24:19,660 --> 00:24:23,000
in terms of either written,
oral communication, whatever,

408
00:24:23,650 --> 00:24:25,840
those are valuable skills,

409
00:24:26,660 --> 00:24:30,320
but they're far outside the traditional
skills we'd expect of a physicist.

410
00:24:30,550 --> 00:24:31,040
There's.

411
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:32,400
Part of me that wants to say, well,

412
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:34,560
I do teach on a master's
in science communication.

413
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:36,880
It sounds like we're
gonna be needed, but this.

414
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:38,920
Yeah, you absolutely will. Um, but oh,

415
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:42,440
we should get you to Nottingham sometimes
soon to tell us all honestly I'm,

416
00:24:42,470 --> 00:24:46,760
yeah. Um, to tell us all
about that. Yeah. Um,

417
00:24:46,950 --> 00:24:49,320
because we've got quite a few
students who are interested in science

418
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:53,520
communicators and I used to teach, um,
no, that's absolutely the wrong word.

419
00:24:54,500 --> 00:24:58,400
Uh, and I don't like the word deliver
at all. Uh, how about convene?

420
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:02,040
I used to convene a module, a
fourth year module called, um,

421
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:06,040
the Politics Perception and Philosophy
of Physics, uh, which is still running.

422
00:25:06,140 --> 00:25:09,680
I'm no longer doing, I, I paid my Jews,
I did it for seven or eight years,

423
00:25:10,060 --> 00:25:14,400
but it was very much developed along
the lines of much more like a humanities

424
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,200
module whereby discussion, debate.

425
00:25:18,170 --> 00:25:23,030
And we cover things like, uh, the
so-called science wars where, you know,

426
00:25:23,030 --> 00:25:27,030
you've got one group of sociologists
saying that there's nothing truly

427
00:25:27,590 --> 00:25:30,790
discovered by science evidence,
culturally related, et cetera.

428
00:25:31,170 --> 00:25:33,270
And you've obviously got the
scientists who work at that,

429
00:25:33,570 --> 00:25:38,550
but also things like peer review, how
does peer review work, um, you know,

430
00:25:38,810 --> 00:25:41,030
gender balance, all those types of things.

431
00:25:41,730 --> 00:25:45,870
And the first time I ran it and tried
to sort of prompt this discussion,

432
00:25:46,030 --> 00:25:46,990
I was really,

433
00:25:47,090 --> 00:25:52,030
really worried because it's a group of
40 physics graduates Oh, undergraduates.

434
00:25:52,290 --> 00:25:54,950
And I'm thinking, okay, this is
gonna be tumble weight. So, okay.

435
00:25:55,370 --> 00:25:59,070
And I asked for the first, do
the little intro and then, um,

436
00:25:59,290 --> 00:26:03,990
ask for the first question and
a hand goes up and then the

437
00:26:03,990 --> 00:26:06,630
floodgates opened and I had to kick
them out after an hour and a half.

438
00:26:07,090 --> 00:26:08,790
So some of the, in that case,

439
00:26:08,820 --> 00:26:12,470
they knew the module they were going
into and they knew what it was like,

440
00:26:12,580 --> 00:26:15,550
what it was gonna be like. So they
were self-selecting in that sense.

441
00:26:15,650 --> 00:26:19,950
But I think this idea that absolutely
every physicist is completely

442
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:25,110
inept and entirely incapable of,

443
00:26:25,530 --> 00:26:28,950
um, communicating. He says as he
struggles to get through that sentence,

444
00:26:29,390 --> 00:26:33,150
<laugh> <laugh>, um, is
is not always the case.

445
00:26:33,650 --> 00:26:37,390
So yes, the ability to communicate is,

446
00:26:38,490 --> 00:26:43,400
uh, just essential. And again, it's
something that's not traditionally in,

447
00:26:43,700 --> 00:26:47,040
in university physics courses,
although there's a lot of focus,

448
00:26:47,170 --> 00:26:49,360
increasing focus on, um,

449
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:52,600
presentation in terms of
scientific presentation,

450
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:55,640
technical presentation less so on.

451
00:26:55,990 --> 00:26:59,600
Well explain to, you know,
somebody with absolutely, you know,

452
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:00,440
background in science,

453
00:27:01,260 --> 00:27:04,880
why we should care about your particular
research in three sentences, golf.

454
00:27:05,330 --> 00:27:06,140
Absolutely.

455
00:27:06,140 --> 00:27:10,120
You've recently been on the Physics World
Weekly podcast speaking about quantum

456
00:27:10,620 --> 00:27:15,530
woo. Yeah. And that's, I
think that's my concern.

457
00:27:15,670 --> 00:27:20,610
My main concern with life generally is
people following stuff that's not true

458
00:27:20,610 --> 00:27:25,290
and, and leading themselves down a or
being led down particular paths which are

459
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:27,210
harmful to them and others.

460
00:27:27,430 --> 00:27:30,570
And with G P T and others
like it making up stuff,

461
00:27:30,570 --> 00:27:32,170
including making up references.

462
00:27:32,210 --> 00:27:37,090
W there are a number of cases
where students have used
G P T and the way they've

463
00:27:37,090 --> 00:27:41,490
been caught is not in terms of that,
that, you know, this you're nodding,

464
00:27:41,490 --> 00:27:45,090
you know, this has not, but for
those who perhaps don't, they, um,

465
00:27:45,310 --> 00:27:47,730
has not been in terms
of the writing style,

466
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:52,970
it's been that G P T has made up
references and that's the only way it was

467
00:27:52,970 --> 00:27:53,200
caught.

468
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:54,130
Yeah, no, absolutely.

469
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:58,930
It's happened to me with a particular
student doing a dissertation

470
00:27:59,710 --> 00:28:01,570
and essentially the
whole dissertation was,

471
00:28:01,790 --> 00:28:04,850
was done via chat G P T.

472
00:28:05,750 --> 00:28:08,670
And well, there's no
policy really <laugh>.

473
00:28:08,700 --> 00:28:12,310
Like there certainly wasn't at the
time for, um, what we do with that.

474
00:28:12,890 --> 00:28:17,870
And the, not only was it only really
recognizable by the fact that the,

475
00:28:18,410 --> 00:28:23,150
um, citations and references
were all made up, but um,

476
00:28:23,460 --> 00:28:26,230
that was the only way we could
sort of say anything about it.

477
00:28:26,500 --> 00:28:28,630
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

478
00:28:28,970 --> 00:28:33,110
So this is what I mean about sort of
genie and the bot genie outta the bottle.

479
00:28:33,340 --> 00:28:35,390
It's, if we can't track this,

480
00:28:35,390 --> 00:28:38,030
and I think there have been
some claims with chat G P T,

481
00:28:38,030 --> 00:28:41,510
at least in terms of looking at the,

482
00:28:42,090 --> 00:28:46,150
the way it uses or constructs
the sentences. There may be,

483
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:50,270
there may be possibilities of
detecting that it is AI generated.

484
00:28:50,830 --> 00:28:55,030
I don't think with G P T four, that's
not really the case. I could be wrong,

485
00:28:55,050 --> 00:28:56,110
but I it's if,

486
00:28:56,130 --> 00:29:00,190
so it's much less the case and as it
evolves it'll get to the point where it's

487
00:29:00,190 --> 00:29:01,023
indistinguishable.

488
00:29:01,270 --> 00:29:05,590
I i, if we're teaching students
to learn for themselves,

489
00:29:06,410 --> 00:29:08,710
the, the tool they're gonna
use for that is the internet.

490
00:29:08,740 --> 00:29:12,670
Part of that is chat g p t four
or whatever it is in the future.

491
00:29:13,610 --> 00:29:17,350
And is anybody in control
of that? Who's is that?

492
00:29:17,350 --> 00:29:22,110
Nobody's in control of the
internet. So it's just how,

493
00:29:22,690 --> 00:29:25,870
how do you discern what's true? Exactly.

494
00:29:26,380 --> 00:29:31,270
Exactly. And that's a skill, that's
a skill that many of us struggle to,

495
00:29:31,330 --> 00:29:36,030
to, to, to keep on top of. So getting
that across to the next generation,

496
00:29:36,030 --> 00:29:39,550
getting that across to students is,
is, is certainly gonna be problematic.

497
00:29:39,610 --> 00:29:44,600
But it's absolutely essential to be,
um, what's an authoritative source,

498
00:29:45,220 --> 00:29:46,053
you know,

499
00:29:46,100 --> 00:29:50,120
is I have my certain broadsheets that
I like and even by using the term

500
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:52,840
broadsheet, I date myself
<laugh>. Absolutely. You know,

501
00:29:52,860 --> 00:29:56,840
as the guardian <laugh> and authoritative
source is the Times and authoritative

502
00:29:56,840 --> 00:30:01,360
source, you know, is Fox
News an authoritative source?

503
00:30:01,940 --> 00:30:06,160
Why should they use, not use Fox News
and use the Guard Unified? Those are,

504
00:30:07,020 --> 00:30:07,630
you know,

505
00:30:07,630 --> 00:30:12,040
very deep questions because of course the
guardian can also get it wrong and you

506
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:14,320
know, journals can get it
wrong. They've been examples of,

507
00:30:14,420 --> 00:30:18,960
of many examples of where peer reviews
completely failed and there's junk out

508
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,960
there. So it's, yeah, it's a difficult,

509
00:30:23,030 --> 00:30:25,520
difficult can of worms.

510
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,320
<Laugh>, there's possibly a world, I
can't imagine this world of course,

511
00:30:29,500 --> 00:30:31,160
but there's possibly a
world where, you know,

512
00:30:31,230 --> 00:30:33,600
even political leaders
might not tell the truth.

513
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:36,880
<Laugh>, it's like one of
those parallel universes. Yeah.

514
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:39,360
<Laugh>. But no, but
joking apart, you know,

515
00:30:39,580 --> 00:30:44,320
not too long ago you could probably
speak to people who would say, you know,

516
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:46,720
you just have to respect
the people in authority.

517
00:30:46,870 --> 00:30:49,880
They are the people who have the, the.

518
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,560
Truth. Yeah, definitely not so
Sony in my lifetime. Absolutely.

519
00:30:52,650 --> 00:30:55,640
We've gone from that, you
know, authorities there,

520
00:30:55,700 --> 00:31:00,360
you don't dare speak truth to
power. What now everybody is,

521
00:31:00,820 --> 00:31:03,480
is questionable at every level. And.

522
00:31:03,740 --> 00:31:08,000
Is there a sense in which these
tools might be used to actually

523
00:31:08,940 --> 00:31:10,040
divine what is true,

524
00:31:10,100 --> 00:31:14,000
to actually be able to
sift through the internet,

525
00:31:14,420 --> 00:31:17,960
to sift through the, the sum of human
knowledge, the sum of understanding.

526
00:31:18,500 --> 00:31:23,320
Is there a some something that
this AI could do to find the

527
00:31:23,420 --> 00:31:26,240
ans the big, the answers to the
big questions and find the truth.

528
00:31:26,500 --> 00:31:30,880
And come, finally come up with the
answer of 42, uh, <laugh> <laugh>.

529
00:31:33,020 --> 00:31:37,160
But The question is, okay,

530
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:38,960
so how would we quantify that? How would,

531
00:31:39,020 --> 00:31:43,240
how do we quantify the truth after all
these things are just processing numbers,

532
00:31:43,450 --> 00:31:45,360
looks like words, but
really it's all numbers.

533
00:31:45,820 --> 00:31:49,960
So how do we quantify the truth? You know,

534
00:31:50,500 --> 00:31:54,360
how do we quantify the truth in science
is, is an interesting question as well.

535
00:31:54,490 --> 00:31:57,530
Cause a big element of that is, you know,

536
00:31:58,270 --> 00:32:03,210
and one of the things I used to cover in
this fourth year module is the blessed

537
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:05,690
fineman. I'm a big fan of fineman, but he,

538
00:32:05,710 --> 00:32:08,850
it is something of a cliche for a
physicist to wheel out the fineman in.

539
00:32:08,950 --> 00:32:10,810
But one of the,

540
00:32:11,030 --> 00:32:15,810
the more famous Fomen quotes
is he was asked to define

541
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,450
what science is to a, the believe
of conference of school teachers.

542
00:32:19,670 --> 00:32:23,250
And his one sentence definition was
science is the belief in the ignorance of

543
00:32:23,250 --> 00:32:26,210
experts. Which is sort of gives
us all a warm fuzzy feeling,

544
00:32:26,310 --> 00:32:29,850
yet it's all about being objective and
it's a, but that's not how science works.

545
00:32:30,150 --> 00:32:30,510
You know,

546
00:32:30,510 --> 00:32:34,970
the first few paragraphs or indeed in
some cases the first few pages of a

547
00:32:34,970 --> 00:32:36,890
scientific paper are what's come before.

548
00:32:37,390 --> 00:32:39,640
And it's really about building
on what's come before.

549
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:42,440
And a big element of
that truth is consensus.

550
00:32:43,700 --> 00:32:47,680
So you could argue that you train
these things to look for consensus,

551
00:32:47,860 --> 00:32:51,920
but of course then the issue is consensus
can certainly build about something

552
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:55,040
that's complete nonsense <laugh>. So it's,

553
00:32:55,140 --> 00:32:57,880
it has to come back to empirical evidence,

554
00:32:58,020 --> 00:33:02,520
it has to come back to empirical dead
and it has to come back to the weight of

555
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:04,430
the evidence. And then,

556
00:33:04,530 --> 00:33:07,510
and that's certainly how science works
so people can have their opinions but it

557
00:33:07,510 --> 00:33:08,750
always comes back to the experiment.

558
00:33:08,810 --> 00:33:11,070
People can of course
screw up the experiment,

559
00:33:11,490 --> 00:33:14,910
but if a hundred people or a hundred
groups do the experiment and they get the

560
00:33:14,910 --> 00:33:19,710
same result, that's getting us
closer to the truth. We never, ever,

561
00:33:19,860 --> 00:33:24,230
ever get to what the truth is
capital T in both cases. Um,

562
00:33:24,690 --> 00:33:28,790
but it gets us closer.
Could that be built in,

563
00:33:29,510 --> 00:33:33,110
I think in the case of sort of
analyzing scientific data? Yeah,

564
00:33:33,610 --> 00:33:38,070
in terms of analyzing
political data? Yeah.

565
00:33:42,910 --> 00:33:46,630
I wanted to get the perspective
of somebody who's currently
a student with their

566
00:33:46,630 --> 00:33:48,590
career in front of them, his corral green,

567
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:53,110
who's a regular contributor to the
physics world magazine and website.

568
00:33:53,770 --> 00:33:56,430
I'm uh, an astrophysics PhD student.

569
00:33:56,810 --> 00:33:59,070
I'm doing my PhD at the
University of Nottingham.

570
00:33:59,470 --> 00:34:04,350
I study like black holes and galaxy
evolution in the most simplest

571
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:05,140
terms.

572
00:34:05,140 --> 00:34:09,390
There's like a specific type that I'm
looking at and I'm trying to like see what

573
00:34:09,390 --> 00:34:13,030
they do to the galaxies that they're in
and maybe how they're triggered in the

574
00:34:13,030 --> 00:34:16,430
first place. Cause we're not a hundred
percent sure. So they're called um,

575
00:34:16,610 --> 00:34:21,470
active galactic nuclei or a G N for
sure. That's what everyone calls them.

576
00:34:22,050 --> 00:34:26,350
And basically in the middle of every
galaxy you have a super massive back hole

577
00:34:26,490 --> 00:34:30,510
and that's what all like the stars and
the dust and the soda systems and things

578
00:34:30,510 --> 00:34:32,950
like that orbit around. Um,

579
00:34:33,170 --> 00:34:38,150
and if just for whatever reason
there's enough dust close enough to

580
00:34:38,210 --> 00:34:39,710
the center of a galaxy,

581
00:34:39,710 --> 00:34:44,670
it can start falling onto the black
hole and all of the gravity from like

582
00:34:44,690 --> 00:34:49,070
the densest object in the universe
basically causes it to spew out a load of

583
00:34:49,070 --> 00:34:49,903
energy.

584
00:34:50,090 --> 00:34:54,310
So some galaxies look like they have a
massive bright point in the middle of

585
00:34:54,310 --> 00:34:57,750
them where obviously most of
them, the black hole's invisible.

586
00:34:58,410 --> 00:35:00,590
So you're looking out in the
universe and you're just like,

587
00:35:00,590 --> 00:35:03,230
why is that one really bright?
What's sort of going on there?

588
00:35:03,770 --> 00:35:06,470
And essentially I'm looking at
those galaxies and being like,

589
00:35:06,530 --> 00:35:08,910
why are they bright? You know,

590
00:35:09,330 --> 00:35:12,670
what's caused this in the first place
and is it doing anything to the rest of

591
00:35:12,670 --> 00:35:13,670
the galaxy that it's in?

592
00:35:14,210 --> 00:35:15,710
So Okay. Are you finding anything?

593
00:35:16,610 --> 00:35:19,430
I'm finding, I'm finding some
stuff. I'm finding some stuff.

594
00:35:19,690 --> 00:35:24,470
But the science process you like you
can't claim anything until you've had it

595
00:35:24,770 --> 00:35:29,070
looked at a lot. So got some
ideas but we're getting there.

596
00:35:29,730 --> 00:35:32,310
You said we don't really
know how they form,

597
00:35:32,750 --> 00:35:34,790
I thought we did know
how black holes form.

598
00:35:35,050 --> 00:35:39,600
We dunno why that type of like process
is triggered in the first place.

599
00:35:40,220 --> 00:35:45,040
So we don't know how all of the sort
of like dust and things started falling

600
00:35:45,070 --> 00:35:47,240
onto the black hole. Um,

601
00:35:47,300 --> 00:35:51,280
and why it isn't happening to every galaxy
or why they exist in the first place.

602
00:35:51,300 --> 00:35:56,080
So that's what's going on. Um, we know
why black holes form mostly, mostly.

603
00:35:56,510 --> 00:35:58,440
Does Ai does chat G P T,

604
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:00,880
does any of this stuff come into
what you are doing at the moment?

605
00:36:01,420 --> 00:36:04,680
So I don't use it uh,
in my work specifically,

606
00:36:04,980 --> 00:36:08,840
but it has started coming up actually
quite a lot. Just in general. Um,

607
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:13,000
in my department we actually had a
seminar the other week all a all about it,

608
00:36:13,350 --> 00:36:17,440
like what it could possibly mean for
the future and things like that. Um,

609
00:36:17,940 --> 00:36:18,560
cuz uh,

610
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:23,440
things like this sort of sort of
common waves cuz prior to this the

611
00:36:23,460 --> 00:36:27,720
new sort of like shiny thing is machine
learning that a lot of people are now

612
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:32,160
actually using in their research.
Um, so it was thinking about like ah,

613
00:36:32,780 --> 00:36:34,680
in, you know, in the next like five,

614
00:36:34,700 --> 00:36:37,800
10 years are people gonna be
just using AI as you know,

615
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:40,920
as much as they'd use
any kind of coding, um,

616
00:36:42,430 --> 00:36:43,320
forgotten the word,

617
00:36:43,350 --> 00:36:48,320
sort of any anything that they use to
code or are they going to try and like cut

618
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:49,800
it out completely and things like that.

619
00:36:50,170 --> 00:36:53,440
Which has been quite interesting
to see happen live almost.

620
00:36:53,900 --> 00:36:57,840
In the seminar. Is are people concerned
about it? Is there excitement about it?

621
00:36:58,100 --> 00:37:01,760
Uh, it's definitely like a bit
of both. There is the concern,

622
00:37:02,020 --> 00:37:05,080
the big thing that I sort of
noticed straight away is how um,

623
00:37:05,270 --> 00:37:09,080
with sort of undergraduates
and their work and things,

624
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:12,080
there's already been, there's like a um,

625
00:37:12,270 --> 00:37:17,040
sort of plagiarism checker thing called
Turn It In that a lot of undergraduates

626
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:20,680
might have heard of and I've heard how
that's already been like updated to

627
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:24,520
recognize like chat G P T
and things like that. Um,

628
00:37:25,300 --> 00:37:27,350
so there is uh,

629
00:37:27,350 --> 00:37:32,190
worries about actually like assessing
people and seeing like what do they know,

630
00:37:32,190 --> 00:37:36,830
what don't they know? But then there's
also really like how useful it could be.

631
00:37:36,830 --> 00:37:40,510
Like people are seeing how it could
be, um, really helpful in the future.

632
00:37:40,510 --> 00:37:43,230
Especially with like
writing papers and writing,

633
00:37:43,230 --> 00:37:45,990
especially the introduction
of papers where you are,

634
00:37:46,450 --> 00:37:50,710
you can't plagiarize other people but
you have to say essentially the same

635
00:37:50,710 --> 00:37:52,190
things in a different way anyway.

636
00:37:52,810 --> 00:37:57,430
So like for my work I'd have to
define what a black hole is and

637
00:37:57,790 --> 00:37:59,870
motivate the reason for studying it.

638
00:37:59,890 --> 00:38:02,310
But I'm not the first person
ever to study a black hole.

639
00:38:02,890 --> 00:38:05,030
So there is like words of just like,

640
00:38:05,030 --> 00:38:07,750
oh why don't you try
like writing it yourself,

641
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:10,710
doing things like that and then like, um,

642
00:38:10,710 --> 00:38:14,510
putting it into chat G P T and seeing if
it can help you write it in a bit of a

643
00:38:14,510 --> 00:38:18,870
like more concise way and things like
that, which is really interesting to see.

644
00:38:19,250 --> 00:38:21,670
So I mean are you using it
yourself in that way or?

645
00:38:22,030 --> 00:38:25,150
Hmm. I, so I haven't yet
but I think I'm going to,

646
00:38:25,270 --> 00:38:27,310
I think I'm definitely going to um,

647
00:38:27,380 --> 00:38:31,190
I've definitely got colleagues of mine
who've used it to just think of titles

648
00:38:31,190 --> 00:38:32,230
for their papers as well.

649
00:38:32,370 --> 00:38:37,170
That's one sort of hard thing
trying to make it relevant to your

650
00:38:37,170 --> 00:38:40,610
field but actually have it be catchy so
people are likely to read it and things

651
00:38:40,610 --> 00:38:44,970
like that. Um, and as the
sort of saying always goes,

652
00:38:45,260 --> 00:38:48,250
especially in like the
more mathematical sciences,

653
00:38:48,250 --> 00:38:50,170
we're not necessarily
that great at writing.

654
00:38:50,870 --> 00:38:55,010
So spent years and years learning all
this hard maths and then suddenly you've

655
00:38:55,010 --> 00:38:57,810
gotta now start writing
papers which can be, you know,

656
00:38:57,830 --> 00:39:01,930
any kind of length but you know,
10, 15 pages worth of writing is,

657
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:06,810
doesn't come naturally to most of us.
So it's very helpful in being like,

658
00:39:06,810 --> 00:39:09,210
well this is the hardest bit, can we,

659
00:39:09,270 --> 00:39:13,930
can we get an AI to sort of
supplement the help with it and how

660
00:39:14,150 --> 00:39:18,610
how much can we, you know, do before we
have to be careful about obviously, um,

661
00:39:18,610 --> 00:39:22,170
plagiarizing or writing things that maybe
aren't a hundred percent like correct

662
00:39:22,190 --> 00:39:23,970
in the way that we mean
and things like that.

663
00:39:24,510 --> 00:39:29,130
So I specifically would use it to help
me like with the actual like language and

664
00:39:29,180 --> 00:39:29,870
prose,

665
00:39:29,870 --> 00:39:34,650
but when I'm using citations I need
to specifically go through other like

666
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:38,650
peer reviewed papers that are
published formally read those,

667
00:39:38,650 --> 00:39:41,410
understand what they're saying and
be like, yes, that's what I mean,

668
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:44,130
this paper backs it
up, I'm using that. Um,

669
00:39:44,270 --> 00:39:47,050
cuz something that's actually
very interesting is that like, uh,

670
00:39:47,050 --> 00:39:51,730
just in general we've had a play
around with it and say like, okay this,

671
00:39:51,910 --> 00:39:54,690
you know, this is a
fact the sun is a star,

672
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:59,330
find like a a paper that
like I could use to cite it

673
00:39:59,750 --> 00:40:04,570
and it can spit out a link that looks
like a paper citation but if you

674
00:40:04,570 --> 00:40:06,370
click it it either goes to nowhere,

675
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:10,650
it's like a fake link or it goes to
a paper that's completely different.

676
00:40:11,110 --> 00:40:14,610
So sort of recognize the kind of links
that you want if you're looking at

677
00:40:14,810 --> 00:40:18,850
academic sources. But it's not
like actually understanding them,

678
00:40:18,850 --> 00:40:22,170
it just knows how to sort of
mirror it on a page. So yeah,

679
00:40:22,170 --> 00:40:26,970
you'd very much not want to use it to
as a citation manager or anything like

680
00:40:26,970 --> 00:40:28,330
that. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

681
00:40:28,670 --> 00:40:32,850
It, I'm tempted to think of it as
a sort of a calculator for writing.

682
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:36,730
Like we've had calculators for maths
for a very long time, you know,

683
00:40:36,730 --> 00:40:38,090
people doing maths have had Yeah.

684
00:40:38,090 --> 00:40:42,210
Calculators and computers to help them
with that maths and this is really a

685
00:40:42,210 --> 00:40:44,330
calculator in a way to
help you with writing.

686
00:40:45,110 --> 00:40:48,290
The difference is a calculator
is as far as I know always right,

687
00:40:48,750 --> 00:40:51,490
but church isn't always
right with its writing.

688
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:54,170
Yeah, exactly. And um,

689
00:40:54,980 --> 00:40:57,970
other things as well is
that it, it can help,

690
00:40:58,290 --> 00:41:02,330
I I think it's very much leaning towards
it can help with writing but you can't

691
00:41:02,330 --> 00:41:05,570
really use it to do the science. Um,

692
00:41:05,620 --> 00:41:09,850
we've seen it like we, there are
other more sort of specialized

693
00:41:11,720 --> 00:41:14,210
UMIs that maybe do a little
bit better, but you could be,

694
00:41:14,210 --> 00:41:18,810
you can't go and be like, oh can you code
me up uh, a code that does x, y and z?

695
00:41:19,430 --> 00:41:23,670
Um, like it can do a few things
very in like a sort of simple way,

696
00:41:23,690 --> 00:41:25,190
but you do have to go in and be like,

697
00:41:25,190 --> 00:41:29,190
okay it's not quite getting that right
but I can go in and like edit this a bit

698
00:41:29,190 --> 00:41:30,023
and things like that.

699
00:41:30,050 --> 00:41:34,320
So it hasn't gotten very much
to the sort of like coding

700
00:41:34,850 --> 00:41:36,160
mathi side yet,

701
00:41:36,580 --> 00:41:41,560
but I think it's well on its way cuz
I know that it has access to the um,

702
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:45,720
anything that's on Git, which is where
you can upload like code two for free.

703
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:46,793
Anything that's um,

704
00:41:46,900 --> 00:41:50,560
public it's got like access to
and is sort of like learning from.

705
00:41:51,180 --> 00:41:56,120
So we're not that far away from it
sort of getting there. Very much so.

706
00:41:56,910 --> 00:41:59,880
Yeah, I, my my feeling is I
don't think it's gonna go away.

707
00:42:00,240 --> 00:42:05,240
I think it's definitely going to become
a part of like science and academia and

708
00:42:05,240 --> 00:42:09,120
things like that, but it's gonna
have to be done in a careful way.

709
00:42:09,140 --> 00:42:13,320
So you're not just, if you are not
just going in and being like, okay,

710
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:16,840
write me a code that does
that, um, here's the data, uh,

711
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:18,720
it's done it all perfectly. Um,

712
00:42:19,180 --> 00:42:23,600
let me go ahead with it in that way
cuz then it's like have you done it?

713
00:42:23,660 --> 00:42:25,840
Can you claim that you've done that? But.

714
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:27,560
What's to stop people doing that? Is it,

715
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:32,520
I mean is that a concern for you
that effectively it might remove the

716
00:42:32,550 --> 00:42:34,360
need for people to do coding?

717
00:42:34,670 --> 00:42:38,720
Yeah, yeah I think that is sort of
like a concern that's coming up, um,

718
00:42:39,050 --> 00:42:40,880
being like, oh no, it's
gonna sort of take,

719
00:42:41,430 --> 00:42:46,080
take people's positions and
jobs and things like that
and you'd have a room full

720
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:50,520
of people typing into chat G P t instead
of a room full of people typing into

721
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:55,840
whatever IDE they're using and things
like that. But um, maybe I have,

722
00:42:55,850 --> 00:42:59,840
maybe I have a bit of a cynical
approach but I also think yes,

723
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:02,000
this is all happening. Yes this is all um,

724
00:43:02,390 --> 00:43:07,320
sort of open source and new and shiny
and people are having a look and going

725
00:43:07,380 --> 00:43:11,160
in but you like it is made by a company.

726
00:43:11,750 --> 00:43:16,560
They aren't going to just like have
it completely go free reign and things

727
00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:21,360
like that. I feel like monetization
for it is coming fairly quickly.

728
00:43:21,720 --> 00:43:24,960
I don't know if you'd get
away with just being like, oh,

729
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:29,040
instead of hiring <laugh>, you know,
a master student or PhD students,

730
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:33,000
I'll get somebody to write this
into chat g PT for me in the future.

731
00:43:33,380 --> 00:43:38,280
So I, I'm not sure how how far it's
gonna get before stuff starts coming up.

732
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:39,360
Like, oh pay us,

733
00:43:39,660 --> 00:43:43,600
pay us to use it or you only
get three free searches today,

734
00:43:43,690 --> 00:43:46,200
audit and things like that. Mm-hmm.

735
00:43:46,240 --> 00:43:48,800
<Affirmative>. Oh yeah. So are
you, but are you seeing, you know,

736
00:43:48,930 --> 00:43:53,600
other PhD students, other undergraduates
using it in a way which concerns you?

737
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:54,140
I.

738
00:43:54,140 --> 00:43:55,960
Do believe that that
is starting to happen.

739
00:43:56,600 --> 00:44:01,360
I do think people are definitely
getting homework questions or coursework

740
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:02,470
questions,

741
00:44:02,470 --> 00:44:06,400
copying and pasting it into chat e p t
and being like answer this question and

742
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:09,920
then just taking out wherever it
says whether they've done it or not.

743
00:44:10,580 --> 00:44:12,240
And that is, that is a problem,

744
00:44:12,350 --> 00:44:15,200
that is a problem for universities
because you know, you need to,

745
00:44:15,580 --> 00:44:19,240
you do need to know these things if you
want to get the qualification that they

746
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:21,160
are offering you. Um,

747
00:44:21,740 --> 00:44:26,460
and it's hard because you can't
always know what the answer will be

748
00:44:26,720 --> 00:44:29,900
cuz right now maybe it's quite in its
infancy and you can be like, okay,

749
00:44:29,900 --> 00:44:34,560
it spits out the sort of five different
versions of this and those are the ones

750
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:38,880
that we know have come from Chap G P T
and so they have to be like filtered out

751
00:44:39,260 --> 00:44:41,640
but it won't, it's very quickly, you know,

752
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:46,800
evolving beyond that and it might
<laugh> it might get a lot harder to do v

753
00:44:46,900 --> 00:44:48,080
uh, very soon. I.

754
00:44:48,180 --> 00:44:52,560
My my understanding is that quite soon
it will be have an update where it's

755
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:56,240
gonna start being able to check and
the veracity of what it's saying in,

756
00:44:56,300 --> 00:44:57,840
in the next additional.

757
00:44:58,310 --> 00:45:03,120
Yeah, yeah. I I've, I do
think that is coming and yeah,

758
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:06,840
it's, it's not, it's not gonna
be a trivial thing to sort of,

759
00:45:07,340 --> 00:45:10,880
to sort of manage because you know, we're,

760
00:45:11,140 --> 00:45:13,880
we are scientists, we are
supposed to, you know,

761
00:45:14,010 --> 00:45:17,600
enjoy innovation and things
like that and there is,

762
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:23,160
I can't really see a a an ultra
valid reason to not use it.

763
00:45:23,220 --> 00:45:27,920
For example, like I said in
paper intros where you are like,

764
00:45:28,070 --> 00:45:33,000
okay these six papers are all
saying different permutations of the

765
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:35,840
same thing and I need to be the
seventh paper that says the different

766
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:37,120
permutation of the same thing.

767
00:45:37,980 --> 00:45:42,960
But then it's that versus I'm gonna
use this to like do my research or

768
00:45:43,020 --> 00:45:47,200
get agree and you know, not
actually do any of it myself.

769
00:45:47,460 --> 00:45:52,440
So the knowledge is not there and
therefore can you like claim fully

770
00:45:52,510 --> 00:45:56,440
that you've uh, done that and
things like that. So it's a,

771
00:45:56,510 --> 00:45:59,400
it's it's, it's gonna be
difficult cuz you wanna,

772
00:45:59,900 --> 00:46:03,800
you wanna take advantage of the good
parts of it without just relying on it

773
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:05,040
completely kind of thing.

774
00:46:05,390 --> 00:46:06,140
Yeah.

775
00:46:06,140 --> 00:46:09,920
So what what you want is humanity to look
at something and take the best from it

776
00:46:09,980 --> 00:46:11,440
and, and leave the rest behind.

777
00:46:12,140 --> 00:46:16,920
Yep. Yep. If only <laugh>, if only
we could do that <laugh>, oh god,

778
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:17,880
<laugh>.

779
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:21,560
I mean so sure certain aspects of society
will do that but it, it, you know,

780
00:46:22,580 --> 00:46:25,720
we can't just hope that that will
happen. Right. And, and yeah,

781
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:30,320
I wonder whether there's anything
that could be done or do we need to do

782
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:33,560
anything from your point of view to, um,

783
00:46:33,770 --> 00:46:38,760
apart from monetizing it and
restricting access to it,

784
00:46:38,780 --> 00:46:41,560
is there anything that
needs to be done to,

785
00:46:41,980 --> 00:46:46,000
to stop those people
taking advantage of the,

786
00:46:47,780 --> 00:46:52,240
the ease that it brings
or the possibly less

787
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:54,560
pleasant ways of using it?

788
00:46:54,830 --> 00:46:59,360
Yeah, I, I, hmm, I don't
know cuz it's like,

789
00:46:59,660 --> 00:47:02,760
um, it's gotta be mixed with the,

790
00:47:02,900 --> 00:47:07,160
the bureaucracy even of like
higher education in universities.

791
00:47:07,260 --> 00:47:11,880
Cuz most academia in, at least that
I know is done in universities.

792
00:47:12,540 --> 00:47:15,360
Yes there's things like ESO and
stuff like that but like, you know,

793
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:16,440
if you look around the globe,

794
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:21,200
they're all just people lecturers in
different universities working on research

795
00:47:21,980 --> 00:47:26,000
and like trying to sort of
blend it through cuz you know,

796
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:28,560
there's been loads of
innovations we've gone from like,

797
00:47:28,670 --> 00:47:33,240
just even in my lifetime you've gone to
smartphones then I was doing exams and

798
00:47:33,240 --> 00:47:37,280
they were just like, smartphones and
smart watches need to be off. Um,

799
00:47:37,540 --> 00:47:42,320
and then like covid happened and they
had to redo all of exams so people could

800
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:43,153
do them at home.

801
00:47:43,700 --> 00:47:48,080
So obviously the questions became very
different and also a lot harder because

802
00:47:48,180 --> 00:47:48,880
you know,

803
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:53,080
a lot of them you could like Google
prior to Covid and they're just like,

804
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:54,960
well if they're at home they
can't just Google the answers.

805
00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:59,160
I need like more long form <laugh>
thinking from them I guess.

806
00:48:00,020 --> 00:48:02,920
Um, and, and now the
next one is like with,

807
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:07,800
with AI and just typing something
into literally just a chat

808
00:48:07,820 --> 00:48:11,520
bot and getting an
answer out and deciding,

809
00:48:11,670 --> 00:48:15,760
well actually in this
case it's fine and in,

810
00:48:15,900 --> 00:48:20,680
and in this case we can't really
like use it very much but I

811
00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:22,040
dunno like what, what,

812
00:48:22,270 --> 00:48:26,000
what could you do if it gets to like,

813
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:29,000
it gets in intergen enough that
you could sit down and be like,

814
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:32,080
okay here's like some data I have, uh,

815
00:48:32,310 --> 00:48:36,640
code up and analyze it and then tell
me if there are any differences or

816
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:38,200
similarities or whatever else.

817
00:48:38,580 --> 00:48:41,760
And if it produces a reasonable piece
of work and you've gone through and

818
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:45,680
checked it, then would
you not use it, you know?

819
00:48:46,340 --> 00:48:48,680
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
well you, yeah, it's,

820
00:48:49,070 --> 00:48:51,280
it's a hard thing to say that
you wouldn't use it, isn't.

821
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:54,880
It? Yeah. Yeah, because I, cuz
that would, that would be like,

822
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:58,760
well what are we doing if we
didn't use it actually so, mm.

823
00:48:59,140 --> 00:49:04,000
But if you were considering
the world before smartphones as

824
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:07,280
you say, and how smartphones
have changed the world,

825
00:49:07,300 --> 00:49:11,920
do you think chat G P T and other things
are gonna change the world in a similar

826
00:49:12,060 --> 00:49:12,740
way.

827
00:49:12,740 --> 00:49:15,720
In the way that it just
becomes very sort of common?

828
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:19,920
I can very easily imagine it
in search engines and like,

829
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:23,000
I just don't think search engines
are that different from it, right.

830
00:49:23,190 --> 00:49:26,320
Whether you like it or not,
it seems to be here to stay.

831
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:31,640
I think it's gonna just become more
and more used in different things and

832
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:33,440
you'll have to adapt to deal with it.

833
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:36,440
I think I'm wary of it but I
don't think it's gonna go away.

834
00:49:36,860 --> 00:49:41,680
And I'm interested to see how
it's dealt with because as

835
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:46,160
much as it's sort of coming into
our lives, I'm not like a, you know,

836
00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:47,720
a head of school,

837
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:52,800
a head of department or head of
like science at a university or in

838
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:54,160
like a massive collaboration.

839
00:49:54,860 --> 00:49:59,040
And so I think they are thinking about
it and they've def I've definitely seen

840
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:01,520
it. I definitely know undergrad
to use it. I mean I would,

841
00:50:02,180 --> 00:50:04,800
if I was still doing an undergrad
degree, I'd be like, damn,

842
00:50:05,190 --> 00:50:06,160
this is gonna help me.

843
00:50:06,220 --> 00:50:09,360
Let me open up a chat g p t
account and see what I can do.

844
00:50:09,940 --> 00:50:14,490
So I wanna see how it sort of goes in
the next couple years and if they'll ever

845
00:50:14,490 --> 00:50:18,370
embrace it or sort of try and
filter it out as much as possible.

846
00:50:19,130 --> 00:50:23,930
I, i if chat G B T and others
evolve to the point or are

847
00:50:23,930 --> 00:50:27,440
updated to the point where
they can do essentially the,

848
00:50:28,100 --> 00:50:31,760
the work that you want, the science,
the coding, the what, the equations,

849
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:34,160
whatever it is that you are
doing for your research,

850
00:50:35,230 --> 00:50:37,320
what role do you see for yourself in.

851
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:41,480
That? I think it's
difficult because if a a,

852
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:45,320
a department or a collaboration
or something like that re like

853
00:50:46,070 --> 00:50:51,040
changes the roles so that they get rid
of all their PhD students and replace

854
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:52,200
them with chat ai.

855
00:50:52,840 --> 00:50:57,720
I do think that they would be fine
for like a while but then I think

856
00:50:57,720 --> 00:51:00,440
they just run into the problem
that's kind of happening already,

857
00:51:00,660 --> 00:51:02,840
but a lot faster in that
like there's a lot of a,

858
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:08,360
a mass in academia sort of finish your
PhD, don't want to become a postdoc,

859
00:51:09,010 --> 00:51:13,080
don't want to become a
lecturer for whatever various
reasons there are and then

860
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:17,640
you'll sort of run out of people
to, to <laugh> to keep things going.

861
00:51:18,340 --> 00:51:19,060
Um,

862
00:51:19,060 --> 00:51:23,440
so I don't think it's going to
literally just get rid of us completely,

863
00:51:24,140 --> 00:51:27,640
but I do think they need to be
careful about it cuz you know,

864
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:30,520
at the end of the day you need somebody
to lecture, you need somebody to mark,

865
00:51:30,990 --> 00:51:35,640
need people to teach. And
if you aren't <laugh>,

866
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:38,560
if you haven't got PhD students
to become those people,

867
00:51:38,590 --> 00:51:39,960
then you're just gonna lose 'em all.

868
00:51:40,500 --> 00:51:43,880
If you could ask AI at,

869
00:51:43,940 --> 00:51:47,200
at any form to answer
any question in physics,

870
00:51:48,310 --> 00:51:49,200
what would you ask it?

871
00:51:49,540 --> 00:51:53,560
Oh, that is hard. <laugh>.
That is very hard.

872
00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:58,120
I what initially comes to mind
is maybe something that's like,

873
00:51:58,310 --> 00:52:01,440
like Nobel Prize worthy. I think just for,

874
00:52:02,340 --> 00:52:07,060
for like my personal, for my, you know,

875
00:52:07,340 --> 00:52:10,580
personal curiosity. Um, but if I, if I,

876
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:15,260
if I could ask it any questions and I
knew with like a hundred percent certainty

877
00:52:15,260 --> 00:52:16,093
it would be right.

878
00:52:16,460 --> 00:52:21,180
I think actually I'd ask it the like
most Vegas question that I could

879
00:52:21,180 --> 00:52:23,940
possibly think. So it could
just solve everything like, oh,

880
00:52:23,940 --> 00:52:28,380
what's the grand unified theory?
And then it just spits out <laugh>,

881
00:52:28,430 --> 00:52:30,820
everything that we're looking into. But,

882
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:33,860
but I would only do that
after I finished my PhD.

883
00:52:34,220 --> 00:52:35,780
I want to be a doctor first <laugh>,

884
00:52:36,650 --> 00:52:40,980
then I'd like collapse it for the rest
of everybody else. <laugh>, I'd wait,

885
00:52:41,180 --> 00:52:43,260
I would literally wait
until I'm done <laugh>,

886
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:47,300
that's it. But that would be it.

887
00:52:47,660 --> 00:52:50,100
I put that same question to Phil Moti.

888
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:53,340
Oh, what's the nature of the wave
function? What is the wave function?

889
00:52:54,240 --> 00:52:57,740
So we still, after a hundred
years or so of quantum mechanics,

890
00:52:57,740 --> 00:52:59,740
right at the core of it is this
thing called the wave function.

891
00:52:59,960 --> 00:53:01,460
So it's this mathematical object.

892
00:53:01,690 --> 00:53:04,060
It's not an experimental
observable as you say.

893
00:53:04,060 --> 00:53:08,380
And there's lots and lots of debates
between what's called the ontological camp

894
00:53:08,380 --> 00:53:11,780
without going too philosophical and
the epistemological camp in terms of,

895
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:16,820
is the wave function telling us
about the nature of reality itself?

896
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:21,660
Or is it telling us about her information
on the, on reality? What is the,

897
00:53:21,660 --> 00:53:24,260
the nature of the way function That
would, that would that, that would be it.

898
00:53:24,260 --> 00:53:24,900
Yeah.

899
00:53:24,900 --> 00:53:25,800
<Laugh> for me, <laugh>,

900
00:53:26,220 --> 00:53:30,040
if chat g p t wants to replace
physicists in the real world,

901
00:53:30,430 --> 00:53:33,360
it's gonna have to develop
that kind of curiosity.

902
00:53:34,820 --> 00:53:39,440
I'd like to thank Carol Green and Philip
Moti for joining me for this episode of

903
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:40,140
the podcast.

904
00:53:40,140 --> 00:53:44,040
And I'd like to thank you for sticking
with me with my hay fever voice.

905
00:53:44,650 --> 00:53:48,400
We'll be back next month when hopefully
my voice will be somewhere back to

906
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:50,960
normal. And we'll be
exploring Moore's Law.

907
00:53:51,500 --> 00:53:53,160
And thank you very much for listening.

908
00:53:58,030 --> 00:53:59,160
Physics world.