Artificial intelligence predicts future directions in quantum science
Can artificial intelligence predict future research directions in quantum science? Listen to this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast to discover what is already possible.
My guests are Mario Krenn – who heads the Artificial Scientist Lab at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light – and Felix Frohnert, who is doing a PhD on the intersection of quantum physics and machine learning at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Frohnert, Krenn and colleagues published a paper earlier this year called “Discovering emergent connections in quantum physics research via dynamic word embeddings” in which they analysed more than 66,000 abstracts from the quantum-research literature to see if they could predict future trends in the field. They were particularly interested in the emergence of connections between previously isolated subfields of quantum science.
We chat about what motivated the duo to use machine learning to study quantum science; how their prediction system works; and I ask them whether they have been able to predict current trends in quantum science using historical data.
Their paper appears in the journal Machine Learning Science and Technology. It is published by IOP Publishing – which also brings you Physics World. Krenn is on the editorial board of the journal and in the podcast he explains why it is important to have a platform to publish research at the intersection of physics and machine learning.
This article forms part of Physics World‘s contribution to the 2025 International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ), which aims to raise global awareness of quantum physics and its applications.
Stayed tuned to Physics World and our international partners throughout the next 12 months for more coverage of the IYQ.
Find out more on our quantum channel.
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1 00:00:08,080 --> 00:00:11,039 Hello, and welcome to the Physics World weekly 2 00:00:11,039 --> 00:00:11,539 podcast. 3 00:00:11,919 --> 00:00:13,219 I'm Hamish Johnston. 4 00:00:13,855 --> 00:00:14,674 In this episode, 5 00:00:14,974 --> 00:00:16,675 I'm joined by two physicists 6 00:00:17,135 --> 00:00:18,114 who are exploring 7 00:00:18,494 --> 00:00:20,195 how artificial intelligence 8 00:00:21,054 --> 00:00:23,634 can be used to predict future directions 9 00:00:24,015 --> 00:00:26,035 in quantum science and technology. 10 00:00:27,029 --> 00:00:27,769 They are 11 00:00:28,070 --> 00:00:30,649 Mario Kran, who heads the artificial 12 00:00:31,189 --> 00:00:33,210 scientist lab at Germany's 13 00:00:33,670 --> 00:00:37,049 Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, 14 00:00:37,429 --> 00:00:38,329 and Felix 15 00:00:38,804 --> 00:00:39,304 Frohnert, 16 00:00:39,765 --> 00:00:41,384 who is doing a PhD 17 00:00:41,844 --> 00:00:42,824 on the intersection 18 00:00:43,204 --> 00:00:46,024 of quantum physics and machine learning 19 00:00:46,405 --> 00:00:47,945 at Leiden University 20 00:00:48,405 --> 00:00:49,304 in The Netherlands. 21 00:00:50,164 --> 00:00:52,104 Earlier this year, Felix, 22 00:00:52,460 --> 00:00:54,000 Mario, and colleagues 23 00:00:54,460 --> 00:00:56,719 published a paper called discovering 24 00:00:57,659 --> 00:01:01,039 emergent connections in quantum physics research 25 00:01:01,500 --> 00:01:04,079 via dynamic word embeddings. 26 00:01:04,984 --> 00:01:07,385 And they join me today to chat about 27 00:01:07,385 --> 00:01:08,125 that work 28 00:01:08,424 --> 00:01:12,125 in which they analyzed more than 66,000 29 00:01:12,505 --> 00:01:13,005 abstracts 30 00:01:13,385 --> 00:01:14,924 from the quantum literature 31 00:01:15,305 --> 00:01:16,924 to see if they could predict 32 00:01:17,305 --> 00:01:19,325 future trends in the field. 33 00:01:27,450 --> 00:01:29,870 Hi, Mario and Felix. Welcome to the podcast. 34 00:01:30,729 --> 00:01:33,530 Hi, Mitch. Very nice, to see you. Glad 35 00:01:33,530 --> 00:01:34,349 to be here. 36 00:01:34,834 --> 00:01:35,655 So, Mario, 37 00:01:36,274 --> 00:01:38,274 can we start off by sort of delving 38 00:01:38,274 --> 00:01:40,055 into the history of this? 39 00:01:40,914 --> 00:01:43,155 Apparently, in the past, people have tried to 40 00:01:43,155 --> 00:01:43,655 use, 41 00:01:44,515 --> 00:01:46,935 data from the scientific literature 42 00:01:47,369 --> 00:01:49,149 to predict the evolution 43 00:01:49,930 --> 00:01:53,049 of a research field. Can you talk a 44 00:01:53,049 --> 00:01:55,930 bit about some of that early work and, 45 00:01:56,329 --> 00:01:58,030 and how successful it was? 46 00:01:58,969 --> 00:01:59,469 Yes. 47 00:02:00,444 --> 00:02:02,284 There have been a lot of, work in 48 00:02:02,284 --> 00:02:04,865 the past where people try to use this 49 00:02:04,924 --> 00:02:07,905 enormous amount of data and see how 50 00:02:08,525 --> 00:02:11,985 researchers work and how researchers could work. So 51 00:02:12,189 --> 00:02:14,770 looking at the strategy of how, 52 00:02:15,150 --> 00:02:17,250 research is done. This has interestingly, 53 00:02:17,709 --> 00:02:19,409 mainly been done by computational 54 00:02:19,789 --> 00:02:20,289 sociologists 55 00:02:21,069 --> 00:02:21,729 who look 56 00:02:22,189 --> 00:02:24,530 at science as a whole and analyze 57 00:02:25,069 --> 00:02:25,569 what 58 00:02:25,995 --> 00:02:28,235 strategies that people use and how we could 59 00:02:28,235 --> 00:02:29,775 accelerate those strategies. 60 00:02:30,555 --> 00:02:32,955 And maybe one of the most exciting work 61 00:02:32,955 --> 00:02:34,655 here in this field that at least, 62 00:02:35,514 --> 00:02:37,835 motivated me to look into this was a 63 00:02:37,835 --> 00:02:38,655 paper from 64 00:02:39,010 --> 00:02:40,550 02/2015, 65 00:02:41,330 --> 00:02:42,230 led by, 66 00:02:43,090 --> 00:02:43,590 Chicago 67 00:02:44,050 --> 00:02:45,189 computational sociologist, 68 00:02:45,490 --> 00:02:46,389 James Evans. 69 00:02:46,770 --> 00:02:49,430 And that paper, it was published in PNAS. 70 00:02:49,569 --> 00:02:51,590 It was called choosing experiments 71 00:02:52,215 --> 00:02:52,955 to accelerate 72 00:02:53,254 --> 00:02:54,474 collective discovery. 73 00:02:55,094 --> 00:02:58,075 And, therefore, the first time, I've seen how 74 00:02:58,135 --> 00:03:01,275 people use millions of scientific papers and patents 75 00:03:02,855 --> 00:03:06,474 to analyze what other concrete strategies that humans 76 00:03:06,694 --> 00:03:07,169 did, 77 00:03:08,689 --> 00:03:11,669 showing that those strategies are at a collective 78 00:03:11,810 --> 00:03:13,349 scale actually quite, 79 00:03:15,009 --> 00:03:15,509 improveable, 80 00:03:15,810 --> 00:03:17,969 let's say, like that. And then they did 81 00:03:17,969 --> 00:03:19,810 a lot of computer simulation to come up 82 00:03:19,810 --> 00:03:21,750 with potential different strategies. 83 00:03:22,375 --> 00:03:24,375 And they have pointed out that if you 84 00:03:24,375 --> 00:03:27,575 would follow if the collective would follow different 85 00:03:27,575 --> 00:03:29,594 strategies, you could theoretically, 86 00:03:30,455 --> 00:03:31,754 come to much faster, 87 00:03:33,094 --> 00:03:34,395 progress in science. 88 00:03:34,879 --> 00:03:36,800 But this was in 02/2015, 89 00:03:36,800 --> 00:03:37,280 and, 90 00:03:37,760 --> 00:03:38,740 this motivated 91 00:03:39,040 --> 00:03:40,479 me at the time that was still during 92 00:03:40,479 --> 00:03:43,199 my PhD to also try the same thing 93 00:03:43,199 --> 00:03:45,520 in my own field in quantum physics. And 94 00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:46,560 then we also, 95 00:03:47,944 --> 00:03:51,004 tried to use hundreds of thousands of papers 96 00:03:51,465 --> 00:03:52,284 to predict, 97 00:03:54,264 --> 00:03:56,504 what scientists will do in the field of 98 00:03:56,504 --> 00:03:58,584 quantum physics. And then we use the same 99 00:03:58,584 --> 00:04:02,310 techniques that James Evans, teams have used. Knowledge 100 00:04:02,310 --> 00:04:04,389 graphs where you have concepts that are the 101 00:04:04,389 --> 00:04:05,849 notes and edges 102 00:04:06,150 --> 00:04:07,930 that are formed when two concepts 103 00:04:08,549 --> 00:04:09,209 are connected, 104 00:04:11,030 --> 00:04:13,269 by a single paper. So you see somehow 105 00:04:13,269 --> 00:04:13,930 the evolution 106 00:04:14,229 --> 00:04:14,729 of, 107 00:04:15,764 --> 00:04:17,064 of what scientists 108 00:04:17,845 --> 00:04:18,824 did in the past. 109 00:04:20,164 --> 00:04:22,004 And that a number of, 110 00:04:22,564 --> 00:04:24,644 there are a number of follow-up papers came. 111 00:04:24,644 --> 00:04:26,725 So this one was published in 2020 in 112 00:04:26,725 --> 00:04:29,285 PNAS, and then we did the AI competition, 113 00:04:29,285 --> 00:04:32,009 but all was based on the same idea 114 00:04:32,009 --> 00:04:33,709 of using this knowledge graphs. 115 00:04:34,329 --> 00:04:34,649 And then, 116 00:04:36,569 --> 00:04:37,149 I met, 117 00:04:37,529 --> 00:04:38,029 Felix, 118 00:04:39,370 --> 00:04:40,110 and Evert, 119 00:04:41,209 --> 00:04:43,529 and they had a very different idea of 120 00:04:43,529 --> 00:04:44,589 how one could 121 00:04:44,970 --> 00:04:45,470 integrate 122 00:04:45,914 --> 00:04:48,414 scientific knowledge and especially the dynamics, 123 00:04:48,794 --> 00:04:51,354 and that is what this specific paper is 124 00:04:51,354 --> 00:04:51,854 about. 125 00:04:52,714 --> 00:04:55,354 I see. Okay. And and I I suppose 126 00:04:55,354 --> 00:04:57,034 it's well, is it obvious? I mean, it 127 00:04:57,034 --> 00:04:58,634 makes sense to me that you've got a 128 00:04:58,634 --> 00:05:01,589 huge amount of data, and that's where machine 129 00:05:01,589 --> 00:05:03,129 learning, artificial intelligence 130 00:05:03,830 --> 00:05:05,830 can really help. And and I think in 131 00:05:05,830 --> 00:05:07,689 the paper that you've published recently, 132 00:05:08,149 --> 00:05:10,310 you've looked at how machine learning can be 133 00:05:10,310 --> 00:05:11,449 used to look for 134 00:05:11,830 --> 00:05:14,250 emergent connections between subfields 135 00:05:14,985 --> 00:05:18,204 in quantum physics with the ultimate goal of 136 00:05:18,584 --> 00:05:19,084 forecasting 137 00:05:19,384 --> 00:05:21,245 the future direction of research. 138 00:05:22,264 --> 00:05:25,785 Can you explain what a subfield is and 139 00:05:25,785 --> 00:05:27,324 and perhaps give an example 140 00:05:27,785 --> 00:05:28,764 of an emergent 141 00:05:29,199 --> 00:05:30,879 connection. I think may maybe a lot of 142 00:05:30,879 --> 00:05:32,879 our listeners would know what a subfield is, 143 00:05:32,879 --> 00:05:33,379 but 144 00:05:33,680 --> 00:05:35,300 the emergent connection bit 145 00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:37,779 might be something new to them. 146 00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:41,379 Felix, could you, could you address that? 147 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:45,014 Yeah. Sure. Of course. So for us, 148 00:05:45,655 --> 00:05:46,875 subfields in 149 00:05:47,254 --> 00:05:50,235 quantum physics within kind of this broader category 150 00:05:50,295 --> 00:05:51,495 would be something like, 151 00:05:51,895 --> 00:05:55,254 single photon quantum optics. Different sublet would be 152 00:05:55,254 --> 00:05:56,634 gravitational wave physics 153 00:05:56,935 --> 00:05:59,495 or topics related to, I don't know, fault 154 00:05:59,495 --> 00:06:00,955 tolerant quantum algorithms. 155 00:06:01,470 --> 00:06:03,729 All of these would fall under the umbrella 156 00:06:03,789 --> 00:06:06,930 term of quantum physics, but in of itself 157 00:06:06,990 --> 00:06:09,629 deal with very kinds of different questions and 158 00:06:09,629 --> 00:06:10,129 techniques. 159 00:06:10,509 --> 00:06:13,310 While quantum optics might focus on questions like 160 00:06:13,310 --> 00:06:14,449 how to generate, 161 00:06:14,975 --> 00:06:16,834 interfere, or detect single photons, 162 00:06:17,214 --> 00:06:19,394 topics like fault tolerant quantum algorithms 163 00:06:19,694 --> 00:06:22,274 might deal with questions about error correction 164 00:06:22,574 --> 00:06:23,794 or resource estimation, 165 00:06:24,095 --> 00:06:26,735 which, of course, fall under this umbrella term 166 00:06:26,735 --> 00:06:29,714 of, quantum physics but are conceptually quite 167 00:06:30,689 --> 00:06:32,529 distinct. But what we have seen in the 168 00:06:32,529 --> 00:06:33,029 past 169 00:06:33,330 --> 00:06:36,370 is that despite these differences, there can be 170 00:06:36,370 --> 00:06:37,590 fruitful overlaps 171 00:06:38,050 --> 00:06:39,029 between different 172 00:06:39,410 --> 00:06:39,910 subfields 173 00:06:40,529 --> 00:06:41,910 in general in science. 174 00:06:42,449 --> 00:06:45,430 One example that is quite prominent 175 00:06:45,764 --> 00:06:46,504 in the, 176 00:06:47,125 --> 00:06:49,845 kind of physics community has been, I think, 177 00:06:49,845 --> 00:06:52,805 the application of, machine learning to the study 178 00:06:52,805 --> 00:06:53,544 of quantum 179 00:06:53,845 --> 00:06:54,664 phase transitions, 180 00:06:55,044 --> 00:06:56,564 which is a connection that has only been 181 00:06:56,564 --> 00:06:57,944 made in around, 182 00:06:58,725 --> 00:06:59,625 2017, 183 00:07:00,004 --> 00:07:00,360 I think. 184 00:07:00,919 --> 00:07:02,699 Before that, these two 185 00:07:03,319 --> 00:07:03,819 fields 186 00:07:04,199 --> 00:07:07,959 were kind of completely distant. Machine learning at 187 00:07:07,959 --> 00:07:09,719 that time was mostly used for things like 188 00:07:09,719 --> 00:07:11,500 image classification or regression, 189 00:07:11,879 --> 00:07:14,535 and quantum phase transitions were studied with kind 190 00:07:14,535 --> 00:07:15,595 of very 191 00:07:16,055 --> 00:07:17,115 physics specific 192 00:07:17,574 --> 00:07:18,074 tools. 193 00:07:18,375 --> 00:07:20,634 But then in around, 2017, 194 00:07:20,935 --> 00:07:23,814 researchers realized that you could use measurements of, 195 00:07:24,294 --> 00:07:26,694 quantum systems to kind of treat them as 196 00:07:26,694 --> 00:07:29,750 structured data similar to images, making it possible 197 00:07:29,810 --> 00:07:32,129 to kind of combine these two techniques or 198 00:07:32,129 --> 00:07:35,649 apply machine learning methods from computer vision to 199 00:07:35,649 --> 00:07:36,550 physics problems. 200 00:07:36,930 --> 00:07:40,229 And this kind of quite simple connection but 201 00:07:40,370 --> 00:07:41,349 powerful idea, 202 00:07:41,685 --> 00:07:43,865 Combining these two distinct ideas 203 00:07:44,725 --> 00:07:47,585 has led to many fruitful results, basically. And 204 00:07:47,605 --> 00:07:48,264 the goal 205 00:07:48,845 --> 00:07:49,345 for 206 00:07:49,925 --> 00:07:51,384 this research project, 207 00:07:51,764 --> 00:07:53,285 Mario and I did, is to try to 208 00:07:53,285 --> 00:07:55,285 build or kind of improve a data driven 209 00:07:55,285 --> 00:07:58,470 method methods that helps to assess or even 210 00:07:58,470 --> 00:07:58,970 forecast 211 00:07:59,350 --> 00:08:01,850 ideas of kind of that type, basically. 212 00:08:02,870 --> 00:08:04,629 I see. And so, I mean, one thing 213 00:08:04,629 --> 00:08:05,129 that 214 00:08:05,589 --> 00:08:07,509 I can think of in, you know, in 215 00:08:07,509 --> 00:08:10,245 in experimental physics, for example, And I'd like 216 00:08:10,245 --> 00:08:12,004 to see, I mean, have I got the 217 00:08:12,004 --> 00:08:14,405 right idea here when I'm thinking about emergent 218 00:08:14,405 --> 00:08:14,905 connections? 219 00:08:15,525 --> 00:08:17,465 You know, for for example, you've got superconducting 220 00:08:17,764 --> 00:08:18,264 circuits. 221 00:08:18,725 --> 00:08:20,504 And, you know, in the past, superconducting 222 00:08:20,884 --> 00:08:22,985 circuits were were used to make 223 00:08:24,069 --> 00:08:24,810 very sensitive 224 00:08:25,189 --> 00:08:28,389 detectors of magnetic fields, weren't they, squids, which 225 00:08:28,389 --> 00:08:30,790 were used in medical physics and and and 226 00:08:30,790 --> 00:08:32,330 other research. But now 227 00:08:32,710 --> 00:08:35,610 superconducting circuits are used as qubits 228 00:08:35,924 --> 00:08:36,664 in quantum 229 00:08:37,044 --> 00:08:38,024 computing. So 230 00:08:38,404 --> 00:08:39,845 is that the sort of thing that you're 231 00:08:39,845 --> 00:08:43,245 looking at? You know, the the use of 232 00:08:43,245 --> 00:08:44,585 of of one quantum 233 00:08:45,284 --> 00:08:48,404 technology suddenly or well, probably not suddenly, but 234 00:08:48,404 --> 00:08:48,904 slowly 235 00:08:49,919 --> 00:08:50,419 becomes, 236 00:08:51,279 --> 00:08:54,399 useful in another area of physics? So moving 237 00:08:54,399 --> 00:08:54,899 from 238 00:08:55,759 --> 00:08:56,259 sensing 239 00:08:56,639 --> 00:08:59,440 to quantum computing. Is that, I mean, are 240 00:08:59,440 --> 00:09:01,360 those the sort of things that you're trying 241 00:09:01,360 --> 00:09:03,840 to predict in the future, or am I 242 00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:04,820 getting that wrong? 243 00:09:06,014 --> 00:09:08,835 Yes. This would be one of the examples. 244 00:09:09,134 --> 00:09:10,355 There are a number of other 245 00:09:10,735 --> 00:09:11,875 examples that are, 246 00:09:13,134 --> 00:09:16,014 where you would, as a human, potentially not 247 00:09:16,014 --> 00:09:17,554 see the connection, 248 00:09:18,120 --> 00:09:19,340 But just by having 249 00:09:20,360 --> 00:09:22,759 access to hundreds of thousands or millions of 250 00:09:22,759 --> 00:09:25,879 papers, the machine sees that there is some 251 00:09:25,879 --> 00:09:27,019 underlying connection. 252 00:09:27,399 --> 00:09:28,539 And then it can, 253 00:09:29,240 --> 00:09:32,059 say, okay. Very likely, this will be connected 254 00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:35,274 because I've seen this underlying connection before, and 255 00:09:35,274 --> 00:09:36,735 that always leads to connections. 256 00:09:38,075 --> 00:09:38,575 Yeah. 257 00:09:40,154 --> 00:09:42,795 I see. And, I mean, obviously, you know, 258 00:09:42,795 --> 00:09:44,955 being able to predict the future is very 259 00:09:44,955 --> 00:09:45,455 important. 260 00:09:46,990 --> 00:09:49,309 So who, I mean, who would benefit from 261 00:09:49,309 --> 00:09:51,389 this? I mean, it are you thinking of 262 00:09:51,389 --> 00:09:54,289 scientists who are trying to plan their career, 263 00:09:54,509 --> 00:09:55,950 or are you thinking of, 264 00:09:56,830 --> 00:09:57,889 research funders, 265 00:09:58,830 --> 00:10:00,924 looking at, you know, new areas to put 266 00:10:00,924 --> 00:10:02,225 money into or companies 267 00:10:02,924 --> 00:10:05,245 trying to work out what, you know, new 268 00:10:05,245 --> 00:10:08,125 technologies will emerge in the next little while. 269 00:10:08,125 --> 00:10:09,904 I mean, it sounds like it could benefit 270 00:10:10,524 --> 00:10:11,825 a lot of people. 271 00:10:13,840 --> 00:10:15,279 So I think for both, 272 00:10:15,840 --> 00:10:18,799 Mario and me, the motivation in the beginning 273 00:10:18,799 --> 00:10:21,220 was actually just a bit of, self interest 274 00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:25,120 at first. Because as researchers, I think one 275 00:10:25,120 --> 00:10:27,414 of the hardest tasks is to consistently come 276 00:10:27,414 --> 00:10:29,514 up with good and fruitful 277 00:10:29,975 --> 00:10:32,634 research ideas, either for ourselves 278 00:10:33,095 --> 00:10:34,475 or for our students. 279 00:10:34,934 --> 00:10:37,095 Because in order to kind of come up 280 00:10:37,095 --> 00:10:39,700 with many good research ideas, you need to 281 00:10:39,700 --> 00:10:42,019 have a mix of, like, good intuition about 282 00:10:42,019 --> 00:10:44,659 the topic, some experience, and sometimes even just 283 00:10:44,659 --> 00:10:46,019 a bit of luck to come up with, 284 00:10:46,339 --> 00:10:47,080 good ideas. 285 00:10:47,459 --> 00:10:49,379 And the hope for both of us was 286 00:10:49,379 --> 00:10:51,139 to kind of use such a model as 287 00:10:51,139 --> 00:10:52,360 sort of like an artificial 288 00:10:52,820 --> 00:10:54,695 muse in the sense that we can have 289 00:10:54,695 --> 00:10:57,414 a data driven method that helps us to 290 00:10:57,414 --> 00:11:00,695 uncover or assess combination of research topics that 291 00:11:00,695 --> 00:11:03,095 no one has considered before, where there's, like, 292 00:11:03,095 --> 00:11:06,074 no benchmark of, combining these two things 293 00:11:07,254 --> 00:11:07,754 together. 294 00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:10,579 So who would benefit from that? Basically, 295 00:11:10,879 --> 00:11:13,539 anyone working in science who regularly needs to 296 00:11:13,600 --> 00:11:16,259 generate new research ideas or kind of project, 297 00:11:17,440 --> 00:11:18,259 project topics. 298 00:11:18,959 --> 00:11:21,139 Yeah. Good benefit from this tool, I think. 299 00:11:22,125 --> 00:11:25,184 I think the biggest benefit could come from 300 00:11:25,485 --> 00:11:25,985 collaborations, 301 00:11:27,804 --> 00:11:28,785 suggesting collaborations 302 00:11:29,325 --> 00:11:29,825 for 303 00:11:30,205 --> 00:11:32,465 researchers that are not in the same field, 304 00:11:32,764 --> 00:11:35,730 potentially that are in very far away fields. 305 00:11:35,970 --> 00:11:37,429 For instance, let's say I have 306 00:11:37,889 --> 00:11:38,870 a friend who works 307 00:11:39,570 --> 00:11:42,070 in astrophysics. I know nothing about astrophysics. 308 00:11:42,850 --> 00:11:44,389 Now I want to work together. 309 00:11:44,850 --> 00:11:45,509 I would 310 00:11:45,889 --> 00:11:48,709 potentially not even know where to start. 311 00:11:50,154 --> 00:11:52,735 I have my techniques. They have their techniques. 312 00:11:53,914 --> 00:11:54,735 I have no idea, 313 00:11:55,434 --> 00:11:57,514 what is their connection. But the machine has 314 00:11:57,514 --> 00:12:00,075 seen hundreds of thousands or millions of papers, 315 00:12:00,075 --> 00:12:02,335 and they could see some underlying 316 00:12:03,070 --> 00:12:04,450 connection that might, 317 00:12:05,389 --> 00:12:07,070 be possible in the future that has not 318 00:12:07,070 --> 00:12:07,809 been possible, 319 00:12:08,829 --> 00:12:11,149 or that has not been done so far. 320 00:12:11,149 --> 00:12:12,990 So I see a lot of potential for 321 00:12:12,990 --> 00:12:13,490 those 322 00:12:13,950 --> 00:12:15,089 very surprising, 323 00:12:15,470 --> 00:12:16,450 very distant 324 00:12:18,225 --> 00:12:18,725 collaborations. 325 00:12:19,105 --> 00:12:21,044 That would be really great. 326 00:12:21,985 --> 00:12:24,464 I see. And I wanted to ask you 327 00:12:24,464 --> 00:12:24,865 about, 328 00:12:25,345 --> 00:12:27,444 the data that you use to train 329 00:12:27,745 --> 00:12:28,644 your system. 330 00:12:29,024 --> 00:12:31,024 I mean, I'm guessing you that you're using 331 00:12:31,024 --> 00:12:31,764 the titles 332 00:12:32,360 --> 00:12:35,740 of, peer reviewed papers. You're using the abstracts. 333 00:12:35,879 --> 00:12:37,820 Are you also looking at, 334 00:12:39,079 --> 00:12:41,100 references that are made in papers 335 00:12:41,559 --> 00:12:45,000 in order to to make connections? What what 336 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:46,539 sort of input do you have? 337 00:12:48,004 --> 00:12:50,084 It's actually quite quite simple. So we use 338 00:12:50,084 --> 00:12:54,084 publicly available preprints of quantum physics papers from 339 00:12:54,084 --> 00:12:54,985 the archive. 340 00:12:56,004 --> 00:12:57,225 In general, researchers 341 00:12:57,605 --> 00:12:59,705 submitted their manuscripts to, 342 00:13:00,164 --> 00:13:03,705 websites like the archive before formal, formal publication, 343 00:13:04,139 --> 00:13:06,879 which makes the consent quite easily accessible, 344 00:13:07,580 --> 00:13:10,300 for us. And in particular, we focus on 345 00:13:10,300 --> 00:13:14,000 the abstracts of each preprint in this quantum 346 00:13:14,139 --> 00:13:14,639 physics, 347 00:13:15,580 --> 00:13:16,080 subsection. 348 00:13:16,725 --> 00:13:19,384 The idea behind that is that the abstract 349 00:13:19,764 --> 00:13:20,264 provides, 350 00:13:21,044 --> 00:13:23,684 provides a condensed summary of the kind of 351 00:13:23,684 --> 00:13:26,644 core ideas of the paper, which typically also 352 00:13:26,644 --> 00:13:29,125 includes kind of one or two sentences about 353 00:13:29,125 --> 00:13:29,865 the background, 354 00:13:30,325 --> 00:13:32,579 some information about the main results, and then 355 00:13:32,579 --> 00:13:35,139 also some information about the the impact, 356 00:13:35,779 --> 00:13:36,600 maybe even, 357 00:13:37,059 --> 00:13:38,039 about that paper. 358 00:13:38,579 --> 00:13:41,079 And only focusing on the abstract 359 00:13:41,379 --> 00:13:43,220 and not, for instance, on the kind of 360 00:13:43,220 --> 00:13:46,339 main figures in the paper simplifies the data 361 00:13:46,339 --> 00:13:49,404 quite a bit because, well, typically, in abstracts, 362 00:13:49,404 --> 00:13:50,625 you don't need to deal with, 363 00:13:51,165 --> 00:13:53,504 formulas or citations or references. 364 00:13:54,205 --> 00:13:56,524 And it also kind of, takes away all 365 00:13:56,524 --> 00:13:59,404 the guesswork with things like, figures, for for 366 00:13:59,404 --> 00:14:02,610 instance. Because what abstracts are typically text based, 367 00:14:03,470 --> 00:14:04,449 which means it's, 368 00:14:05,070 --> 00:14:07,730 much easier to kind of extract the information 369 00:14:07,949 --> 00:14:09,889 from that for the machine learning model. 370 00:14:11,070 --> 00:14:13,709 I see. And and is it possible to 371 00:14:13,709 --> 00:14:15,649 explain in simple terms 372 00:14:16,774 --> 00:14:19,254 how the the machine learning is used to 373 00:14:19,254 --> 00:14:21,174 process these data? I mean, you know, sort 374 00:14:21,174 --> 00:14:23,414 of keep in mind that you're you're speaking 375 00:14:23,414 --> 00:14:24,154 to physicists 376 00:14:25,014 --> 00:14:25,834 rather than 377 00:14:26,134 --> 00:14:28,154 computer scientists. Is there 378 00:14:28,559 --> 00:14:30,899 is there an easy way to describe 379 00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:33,779 how it's done? Or may maybe there's not 380 00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:36,320 an easy way. But, I mean, you know, 381 00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:38,000 how would you explain it to a colleague 382 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:40,980 who's a physicist rather than a computer scientist? 383 00:14:42,504 --> 00:14:46,044 For sure. So in the machine learning pipeline, 384 00:14:46,184 --> 00:14:49,004 there are three main steps. There is a 385 00:14:49,144 --> 00:14:52,584 data collection phase, there is the words embedding 386 00:14:52,584 --> 00:14:55,485 phase, and a training and prediction phase. 387 00:14:55,820 --> 00:14:58,539 The first step, data collection, kind of connects 388 00:14:58,539 --> 00:15:00,639 to the previous question you asked, 389 00:15:01,740 --> 00:15:04,299 where we kind of take a bunch of, 390 00:15:04,779 --> 00:15:08,080 quantum physics publications, look at the abstract, 391 00:15:08,634 --> 00:15:10,894 and then from each abstract, identify 392 00:15:11,274 --> 00:15:14,235 key scientific concepts we are interested in tracking 393 00:15:14,235 --> 00:15:17,054 over time, which in our case are, well, 394 00:15:17,355 --> 00:15:19,615 quantum physics concepts, things like, 395 00:15:19,995 --> 00:15:20,495 entanglement, 396 00:15:21,115 --> 00:15:23,534 quantum circuits, or phase transition. 397 00:15:24,610 --> 00:15:25,590 The second step, 398 00:15:26,049 --> 00:15:26,549 the 399 00:15:27,330 --> 00:15:30,129 word embedding is then the kind of key 400 00:15:30,129 --> 00:15:34,070 idea of this paper. Because in order to 401 00:15:34,210 --> 00:15:35,830 use machine learning to 402 00:15:36,769 --> 00:15:37,269 connect 403 00:15:37,730 --> 00:15:38,549 these concepts, 404 00:15:39,004 --> 00:15:40,784 You need to be able to translate 405 00:15:41,164 --> 00:15:42,384 these words 406 00:15:42,764 --> 00:15:45,804 into numbers that a machine learning model can 407 00:15:45,804 --> 00:15:49,084 understand and process that somehow encodes their meaning 408 00:15:49,084 --> 00:15:49,584 and 409 00:15:49,964 --> 00:15:50,464 usage. 410 00:15:51,004 --> 00:15:54,460 And, yeah, kind of simple ideas like just 411 00:15:54,460 --> 00:15:57,019 giving each word you're interested in a unique 412 00:15:57,019 --> 00:15:59,740 number, of course, wouldn't really work because this 413 00:15:59,740 --> 00:16:02,160 would throw away all the contextual information 414 00:16:02,540 --> 00:16:05,565 about how similar or dissimilar certain words are 415 00:16:05,725 --> 00:16:07,105 or how they are used, 416 00:16:07,804 --> 00:16:10,524 in the context of these abstracts. So what 417 00:16:10,524 --> 00:16:13,404 we do instead is a technique called word 418 00:16:13,404 --> 00:16:16,845 embeddings, which basically turns each word into the 419 00:16:16,845 --> 00:16:17,345 abstract, 420 00:16:17,820 --> 00:16:18,320 into 421 00:16:18,779 --> 00:16:19,679 a high dimensional 422 00:16:20,460 --> 00:16:23,820 vector, which somehow encodes its meaning or how 423 00:16:23,820 --> 00:16:25,200 it is used. 424 00:16:25,740 --> 00:16:28,940 And then you kind of use these, 425 00:16:29,740 --> 00:16:32,460 vectors for the machine learning model. I tried 426 00:16:32,460 --> 00:16:34,355 to come up with a simple example to 427 00:16:34,355 --> 00:16:35,654 kind of highlight 428 00:16:36,115 --> 00:16:38,154 how this could look like. And for this, 429 00:16:38,154 --> 00:16:39,815 I have, like, two sentences. 430 00:16:40,674 --> 00:16:42,294 So the sun is hot 431 00:16:42,674 --> 00:16:45,794 and the moon is cold, which you could 432 00:16:45,794 --> 00:16:48,455 try to encode with such a word embedding. 433 00:16:48,620 --> 00:16:50,620 And in the end, what you would look 434 00:16:50,620 --> 00:16:52,000 for in the embeddings 435 00:16:52,379 --> 00:16:54,459 are then kind of a representation of how 436 00:16:54,459 --> 00:16:56,220 these individual words are used in these two 437 00:16:56,220 --> 00:16:58,779 sentences. So for instance, on some kind of 438 00:16:58,779 --> 00:17:01,179 axis in the embedding, the words sun and 439 00:17:01,179 --> 00:17:02,325 moon might 440 00:17:02,804 --> 00:17:05,285 share one dimension because they're used as the 441 00:17:05,285 --> 00:17:06,904 subjects in the sentences. 442 00:17:07,285 --> 00:17:09,865 The words hot and cold might then lie 443 00:17:09,924 --> 00:17:12,805 might then lie on different axis because they 444 00:17:12,805 --> 00:17:14,505 kind of represent the temperature 445 00:17:15,285 --> 00:17:15,990 of an object. 446 00:17:17,029 --> 00:17:19,269 And the idea is then that somehow the 447 00:17:19,269 --> 00:17:20,650 embedding also encodes 448 00:17:21,990 --> 00:17:24,150 how these different words relate to each other. 449 00:17:24,150 --> 00:17:26,150 So for instance, if you would compute the 450 00:17:26,150 --> 00:17:27,769 overlap between the vector 451 00:17:28,085 --> 00:17:30,984 of the word sun and hot, it should, 452 00:17:31,444 --> 00:17:33,865 if the embedding is well trained, be larger 453 00:17:34,085 --> 00:17:36,964 as then the embedding between sun and cold 454 00:17:36,964 --> 00:17:38,884 because sun and hot are kind of more 455 00:17:38,884 --> 00:17:39,865 closely aligned. 456 00:17:40,325 --> 00:17:42,005 Yeah. This is kind of the the general 457 00:17:42,005 --> 00:17:44,390 idea of how we want to encode the 458 00:17:44,529 --> 00:17:46,309 underlying information about the physics 459 00:17:46,690 --> 00:17:47,589 into these 460 00:17:48,130 --> 00:17:48,630 vectors. 461 00:17:49,250 --> 00:17:50,950 And then the only thing that this, 462 00:17:52,769 --> 00:17:54,769 machine learning model that we then kind of 463 00:17:54,769 --> 00:17:56,210 train to do the predictions in the end 464 00:17:56,210 --> 00:17:58,115 does is look at, 465 00:17:58,974 --> 00:18:01,455 two of these vectors and then try to 466 00:18:01,455 --> 00:18:03,474 predict whether these two vectors 467 00:18:03,775 --> 00:18:05,634 will appear in the same abstract 468 00:18:05,934 --> 00:18:06,674 in a given, 469 00:18:07,855 --> 00:18:08,595 time frame. 470 00:18:09,150 --> 00:18:10,910 What we do in the paper is we 471 00:18:10,910 --> 00:18:11,410 define 472 00:18:11,710 --> 00:18:14,049 a training window, so for instance, from 473 00:18:14,430 --> 00:18:16,670 2000 to 02/2010, 474 00:18:16,670 --> 00:18:19,170 and look at which concept pairs were not 475 00:18:19,390 --> 00:18:22,515 linked yet in this tracking window. And what 476 00:18:22,515 --> 00:18:24,595 the model, tries to do is then to 477 00:18:24,595 --> 00:18:28,195 predict which of these unconnected pairs are likely 478 00:18:28,195 --> 00:18:30,695 to appear together in future abstracts 479 00:18:31,075 --> 00:18:33,795 within a time window of three years, for 480 00:18:33,795 --> 00:18:34,295 instance. 481 00:18:34,789 --> 00:18:36,789 And then the idea is that if you 482 00:18:36,789 --> 00:18:38,710 want some kind of use this machine learning 483 00:18:38,710 --> 00:18:41,029 model for inference to make kind of further 484 00:18:41,029 --> 00:18:43,769 predictions, you basically just shift the time window 485 00:18:44,069 --> 00:18:47,190 from kind of 2,000 to 2,010. You could 486 00:18:47,190 --> 00:18:49,829 also use it to predict from 2,010 to 487 00:18:49,829 --> 00:18:50,684 2,020 488 00:18:51,164 --> 00:18:53,404 or even, further. That's kind of the the 489 00:18:53,404 --> 00:18:54,305 general idea. 490 00:18:54,684 --> 00:18:55,985 I would like to mention 491 00:18:56,445 --> 00:18:56,945 that 492 00:18:57,245 --> 00:18:59,505 what Felix just explained is the 493 00:18:59,884 --> 00:19:00,785 main difference 494 00:19:01,164 --> 00:19:02,924 from our work to what has been done 495 00:19:02,924 --> 00:19:03,424 before. 496 00:19:03,839 --> 00:19:05,519 So before I close what I mentioned in 497 00:19:05,519 --> 00:19:07,299 the beginning, the computational sociologists 498 00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:10,339 and also in my own previous 499 00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:13,519 work, we have built up knowledge graphs. And 500 00:19:13,519 --> 00:19:14,339 knowledge graphs, 501 00:19:15,039 --> 00:19:18,559 have concepts that are the vertices of the 502 00:19:18,559 --> 00:19:20,875 graph, and edges are drawn when, 503 00:19:21,974 --> 00:19:24,234 two concepts are mentioned in the paper. 504 00:19:25,335 --> 00:19:25,835 Now 505 00:19:26,294 --> 00:19:28,154 when I just use the concepts, 506 00:19:28,774 --> 00:19:31,595 I throw away everything about the 507 00:19:32,054 --> 00:19:33,269 context of that word. 508 00:19:34,150 --> 00:19:35,930 That's exactly what Felix mentioned. 509 00:19:36,309 --> 00:19:38,009 Basically, I just define 510 00:19:38,309 --> 00:19:40,390 the word as a number and remove all 511 00:19:40,390 --> 00:19:41,529 of the other information. 512 00:19:42,070 --> 00:19:44,710 But now with the technique that, Felix just 513 00:19:44,710 --> 00:19:47,244 explained that we published in this paper, we 514 00:19:47,244 --> 00:19:49,585 get much more context of the words 515 00:19:50,044 --> 00:19:52,065 by using this more modern, 516 00:19:52,605 --> 00:19:55,565 word embedding instead of knowledge graphs. That comes 517 00:19:55,565 --> 00:19:57,265 with extra technical, 518 00:19:58,044 --> 00:20:00,144 challenges that we had to, 519 00:20:00,525 --> 00:20:01,025 solve, 520 00:20:01,380 --> 00:20:03,720 But then you can get much more context 521 00:20:04,099 --> 00:20:06,680 of the word, of the phrases itself, 522 00:20:07,059 --> 00:20:07,880 and, hopefully, 523 00:20:08,180 --> 00:20:09,799 then get better predictions. 524 00:20:11,059 --> 00:20:14,339 I see. And you use data that went 525 00:20:14,339 --> 00:20:16,259 back to 1994. 526 00:20:16,259 --> 00:20:18,055 So that's, you know, we're looking more 527 00:20:18,595 --> 00:20:20,454 than thirty years ago. 528 00:20:21,954 --> 00:20:23,634 I mean, if you sort of run your 529 00:20:23,634 --> 00:20:25,335 system using older data, 530 00:20:25,795 --> 00:20:28,375 do do you find that it predicts things 531 00:20:28,835 --> 00:20:30,214 that actually happened 532 00:20:30,789 --> 00:20:32,410 a decade or two later? 533 00:20:33,990 --> 00:20:36,970 The short answer to that would be yes. 534 00:20:37,509 --> 00:20:38,410 Well, congratulations. 535 00:20:40,630 --> 00:20:42,250 And there are basically 536 00:20:42,549 --> 00:20:45,190 two different types of predictions our model can 537 00:20:45,190 --> 00:20:48,044 make. Our model can make validation predictions 538 00:20:48,345 --> 00:20:49,404 where we can still 539 00:20:49,704 --> 00:20:52,044 check the outcome and truly 540 00:20:52,345 --> 00:20:53,085 new predictions 541 00:20:53,384 --> 00:20:56,444 where we don't entirely know the outcome yet. 542 00:20:56,585 --> 00:20:58,424 As you mentioned, our model was trained on 543 00:20:58,424 --> 00:21:01,259 data from nineteen nineteen four till, 544 00:21:01,660 --> 00:21:02,559 2017, 545 00:21:02,859 --> 00:21:04,859 in our case, where the model was kind 546 00:21:04,859 --> 00:21:06,640 of used to predict, 547 00:21:07,900 --> 00:21:09,980 contact connections within the next three years, so 548 00:21:09,980 --> 00:21:11,279 until 2019. 549 00:21:11,820 --> 00:21:14,320 And the validation predictions we did 550 00:21:14,904 --> 00:21:15,644 were then 551 00:21:16,025 --> 00:21:18,184 by, kind of shift the time window, as 552 00:21:18,184 --> 00:21:20,744 I explained for the, previous question, where we 553 00:21:20,744 --> 00:21:21,644 tried to predict 554 00:21:22,904 --> 00:21:24,684 or could yeah. Validation predictions, 555 00:21:25,464 --> 00:21:26,904 from 2020 556 00:21:26,904 --> 00:21:28,664 till 2023 557 00:21:28,664 --> 00:21:31,220 where there still is real world data that 558 00:21:31,220 --> 00:21:32,599 we can test against. 559 00:21:33,139 --> 00:21:35,480 And our model managed to kind of discover 560 00:21:36,019 --> 00:21:39,139 a couple of emergent research directions there, which 561 00:21:39,139 --> 00:21:42,765 includes ideas like using tensor network methods to 562 00:21:42,765 --> 00:21:45,724 simulate local quantum circuits, so quantum circuits with 563 00:21:45,724 --> 00:21:47,105 only minimal entanglement, 564 00:21:47,724 --> 00:21:50,384 or ideas of using machine learning to optimize 565 00:21:50,445 --> 00:21:51,984 the structure of, 566 00:21:53,325 --> 00:21:54,144 quantum circuits. 567 00:21:54,460 --> 00:21:56,539 And these kind of, two examples and a 568 00:21:56,539 --> 00:21:58,779 few more are things we discuss in the 569 00:21:58,779 --> 00:22:00,320 paper in detail, basically. 570 00:22:01,820 --> 00:22:03,680 The question about truly 571 00:22:04,059 --> 00:22:04,720 new predictions 572 00:22:05,340 --> 00:22:07,440 is slightly more complicated, 573 00:22:08,615 --> 00:22:09,434 I would say. 574 00:22:10,774 --> 00:22:11,274 One 575 00:22:11,654 --> 00:22:12,154 idea 576 00:22:12,615 --> 00:22:14,534 that I need to discuss for further first 577 00:22:14,534 --> 00:22:15,914 is the idea of, 578 00:22:16,454 --> 00:22:16,954 calibration 579 00:22:17,335 --> 00:22:18,294 of the, 580 00:22:18,855 --> 00:22:20,554 prediction model. Because 581 00:22:21,095 --> 00:22:23,390 in the end, what you are generally interested 582 00:22:23,390 --> 00:22:25,569 in is to have kind of a 583 00:22:25,869 --> 00:22:27,809 small subsets of predictions 584 00:22:28,109 --> 00:22:30,930 where the model is super subbed that, 585 00:22:31,630 --> 00:22:32,369 these predictions 586 00:22:32,990 --> 00:22:33,650 are actually, 587 00:22:34,509 --> 00:22:36,190 correct. So one thing that you need to 588 00:22:36,190 --> 00:22:37,569 check first is 589 00:22:37,964 --> 00:22:39,184 is the confidence 590 00:22:39,884 --> 00:22:42,525 of your machine learning model aligns to the 591 00:22:42,525 --> 00:22:43,025 probability 592 00:22:43,404 --> 00:22:46,625 of being right or false in this prediction? 593 00:22:46,684 --> 00:22:48,044 This is kind of one section in the 594 00:22:48,044 --> 00:22:49,105 paper where we analyze, 595 00:22:49,724 --> 00:22:51,265 like, how our model performs, 596 00:22:52,044 --> 00:22:54,279 in this aspect. And it turns out that 597 00:22:54,279 --> 00:22:56,519 this actually works kind of well. So if 598 00:22:56,519 --> 00:22:58,200 we look at the output probability of the 599 00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:00,519 model, this is aligned quite well with the 600 00:23:00,519 --> 00:23:03,259 probability of the model being false or correct. 601 00:23:03,559 --> 00:23:05,420 So what you can do then is basically 602 00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:06,859 predict 603 00:23:07,615 --> 00:23:09,934 many, many concepts, like, tens of thousands of 604 00:23:09,934 --> 00:23:10,434 concepts, 605 00:23:10,734 --> 00:23:14,255 and then rank them by their probability of 606 00:23:14,255 --> 00:23:15,554 actually occurring 607 00:23:15,934 --> 00:23:16,674 in the future. 608 00:23:17,375 --> 00:23:20,170 And we we did that and found a 609 00:23:20,170 --> 00:23:21,710 subset of predictions that have 610 00:23:22,009 --> 00:23:23,630 over 99.9% 611 00:23:24,009 --> 00:23:24,509 probability 612 00:23:25,289 --> 00:23:27,930 of occurring. And this was very interesting because 613 00:23:27,930 --> 00:23:29,230 most of these concepts 614 00:23:29,529 --> 00:23:32,730 seem to be related to single photon quantum 615 00:23:32,730 --> 00:23:33,230 optics. 616 00:23:33,609 --> 00:23:36,474 So things that are related to concepts like 617 00:23:36,474 --> 00:23:38,734 photon detector and spatial modes 618 00:23:39,035 --> 00:23:41,295 or concepts like polarization entanglements 619 00:23:41,674 --> 00:23:42,174 and, 620 00:23:42,554 --> 00:23:43,375 single photon, 621 00:23:44,075 --> 00:23:45,214 single photon source. 622 00:23:46,234 --> 00:23:48,234 And this was actually something I had a 623 00:23:48,234 --> 00:23:51,130 chat about with with a quantum opt optics 624 00:23:51,130 --> 00:23:53,930 professor from Leiden University, where I'm doing my 625 00:23:53,930 --> 00:23:54,430 PhD. 626 00:23:54,890 --> 00:23:57,690 And all of these predictions actually somehow seem 627 00:23:57,690 --> 00:23:58,269 to make 628 00:23:58,730 --> 00:24:00,430 sense, but are also already 629 00:24:01,130 --> 00:24:03,230 known. So the catch with that is basically 630 00:24:03,724 --> 00:24:05,184 that some of the publications 631 00:24:06,445 --> 00:24:08,924 that were in the kind of subset of 632 00:24:08,924 --> 00:24:09,904 quantum physics, 633 00:24:10,525 --> 00:24:11,744 abstracts that we used 634 00:24:12,285 --> 00:24:14,765 mentioned these concepts. But, of course, we did 635 00:24:14,765 --> 00:24:15,424 not specifically 636 00:24:15,805 --> 00:24:18,865 train our model on optics papers, 637 00:24:19,259 --> 00:24:22,400 which means it's kind of solve these connections, 638 00:24:22,539 --> 00:24:23,440 make these connections, 639 00:24:23,820 --> 00:24:26,220 but it never saw the actual kind of 640 00:24:26,220 --> 00:24:26,720 papers 641 00:24:27,180 --> 00:24:29,580 where these concepts are explicitly mentioned. So there 642 00:24:29,580 --> 00:24:30,240 are kind of 643 00:24:30,779 --> 00:24:33,644 two different interpretations I can make on that. 644 00:24:33,724 --> 00:24:36,205 Kind of one optimistic interpretation would be that 645 00:24:36,205 --> 00:24:38,464 our machine learning model kind of has discovered 646 00:24:38,605 --> 00:24:41,325 the concept of single photon quantum optics on 647 00:24:41,325 --> 00:24:41,984 its own, 648 00:24:42,285 --> 00:24:44,384 and the kind of slightly more conservative, 649 00:24:45,164 --> 00:24:47,460 interpretation would be that in order to get 650 00:24:47,940 --> 00:24:49,880 very meaningful predictions in the future, 651 00:24:50,659 --> 00:24:51,960 one would need to train 652 00:24:52,579 --> 00:24:54,759 our model in kind of all physics applications 653 00:24:54,980 --> 00:24:56,679 to rule out these 654 00:24:57,059 --> 00:25:00,039 kind of trivial or simple predictions 655 00:25:00,445 --> 00:25:02,205 that might have not occurred together in the 656 00:25:02,205 --> 00:25:03,825 training set, but 657 00:25:04,445 --> 00:25:06,205 might be, like, somewhere out there on the 658 00:25:06,205 --> 00:25:07,105 Internet, basically. 659 00:25:08,285 --> 00:25:10,765 I see. And is that is that something 660 00:25:10,765 --> 00:25:11,585 that's possible, 661 00:25:12,605 --> 00:25:14,465 you know, to expand the training 662 00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:16,380 to include all 663 00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:19,640 physics papers? I mean, I mean, first of 664 00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:21,420 all, you know, would you have the computing 665 00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:24,440 resources to do that, and and would that 666 00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:25,180 be useful, 667 00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:27,980 in terms of making predictions? 668 00:25:28,954 --> 00:25:30,894 Maybe you wanna speak about that, Mario? 669 00:25:31,434 --> 00:25:31,934 Yes. 670 00:25:32,714 --> 00:25:33,615 So this is, 671 00:25:34,075 --> 00:25:37,755 definitely possible. Actually, we had, different status where 672 00:25:37,755 --> 00:25:38,894 we not only used, 673 00:25:39,275 --> 00:25:40,950 quantum physics as 674 00:25:41,509 --> 00:25:42,970 input data, but also, 675 00:25:45,109 --> 00:25:48,230 entire physics. Or in one study, we even 676 00:25:48,230 --> 00:25:49,690 used all published 677 00:25:50,149 --> 00:25:50,649 papers, 678 00:25:51,509 --> 00:25:52,329 that exist. 679 00:25:53,525 --> 00:25:55,944 I just looked it up 58,000,000 680 00:25:56,244 --> 00:25:59,224 research papers. So that is possible to take 681 00:25:59,365 --> 00:26:00,505 much, much larger, 682 00:26:02,964 --> 00:26:03,464 subsets 683 00:26:03,845 --> 00:26:04,325 of, 684 00:26:04,884 --> 00:26:05,339 science. 685 00:26:06,220 --> 00:26:07,200 Of course, then 686 00:26:07,579 --> 00:26:09,119 using this data will become 687 00:26:09,500 --> 00:26:10,000 significantly 688 00:26:10,460 --> 00:26:12,000 more computationally expensive 689 00:26:12,460 --> 00:26:15,339 so that the process will be more expensive. 690 00:26:15,339 --> 00:26:15,839 But, 691 00:26:16,380 --> 00:26:18,799 if we really want to go into predicting 692 00:26:18,940 --> 00:26:19,440 novel 693 00:26:20,194 --> 00:26:22,375 research directions, then we have to do this. 694 00:26:22,515 --> 00:26:24,115 So I think in our paper, we showed 695 00:26:24,115 --> 00:26:25,654 it as this huge potential. 696 00:26:26,275 --> 00:26:27,494 And now 697 00:26:27,795 --> 00:26:28,855 we could go into, 698 00:26:29,634 --> 00:26:32,355 thinking about using it for whole physics or 699 00:26:32,355 --> 00:26:35,320 for whole natural science or just whatever 700 00:26:35,779 --> 00:26:36,759 for all science. 701 00:26:37,859 --> 00:26:39,700 Right. Okay. And is that, I mean, is 702 00:26:39,700 --> 00:26:41,400 that something that you and your 703 00:26:41,700 --> 00:26:44,420 collaborators would be interested in? Or do or 704 00:26:44,420 --> 00:26:45,539 do you think that, 705 00:26:46,580 --> 00:26:49,434 that, you know, may maybe maybe people working 706 00:26:49,654 --> 00:26:52,235 or studying other fields, people who study 707 00:26:53,095 --> 00:26:54,154 how biology 708 00:26:54,455 --> 00:26:57,815 evolves, for example, would, would join with you? 709 00:26:57,815 --> 00:26:59,460 I mean, do do do you see this? 710 00:26:59,940 --> 00:27:01,399 I mean, is this a new field 711 00:27:01,700 --> 00:27:03,700 or a growing field that, 712 00:27:04,339 --> 00:27:06,200 that you think you've made a significant 713 00:27:06,500 --> 00:27:07,720 contribution to, 714 00:27:08,500 --> 00:27:10,740 and, you know, other people will follow on 715 00:27:10,740 --> 00:27:11,480 from you? 716 00:27:12,464 --> 00:27:12,964 There 717 00:27:13,664 --> 00:27:15,265 there are, there are a lot of groups 718 00:27:15,265 --> 00:27:16,244 that look into 719 00:27:17,825 --> 00:27:20,805 this direction or related direction. It's a huge, 720 00:27:21,744 --> 00:27:22,644 field to, 721 00:27:23,744 --> 00:27:25,049 to try to come up with 722 00:27:25,690 --> 00:27:29,610 computer inspired new ideas in a, data driven 723 00:27:29,610 --> 00:27:30,110 way. 724 00:27:30,809 --> 00:27:32,970 We show one method how that is done. 725 00:27:32,970 --> 00:27:34,350 There are many other methods. 726 00:27:35,450 --> 00:27:36,830 Now the question is, 727 00:27:37,369 --> 00:27:37,869 is 728 00:27:38,455 --> 00:27:40,555 predicting what scientists will do, 729 00:27:41,654 --> 00:27:43,815 is this the one thing you need to 730 00:27:43,815 --> 00:27:46,075 discover new ideas or are there other things? 731 00:27:46,535 --> 00:27:48,855 For instance, you can think about, can I 732 00:27:48,855 --> 00:27:49,355 predict 733 00:27:49,735 --> 00:27:50,235 impactful 734 00:27:50,775 --> 00:27:51,914 research directions? 735 00:27:52,940 --> 00:27:54,779 And just a few months ago, we have 736 00:27:54,779 --> 00:27:57,519 also published in machine learning science and technology 737 00:27:57,579 --> 00:27:57,980 and, 738 00:27:58,380 --> 00:27:58,880 IOP, 739 00:27:59,980 --> 00:28:00,480 journal, 740 00:28:00,859 --> 00:28:02,240 a paper where we showed, 741 00:28:02,779 --> 00:28:04,539 that was, led by, 742 00:28:05,065 --> 00:28:07,785 my former post doc, Shumei Gu, who is 743 00:28:07,785 --> 00:28:08,924 also coauthor 744 00:28:09,225 --> 00:28:10,684 of the paper with Felix, 745 00:28:11,705 --> 00:28:14,445 that we showed that you can actually predict 746 00:28:14,505 --> 00:28:15,005 also, 747 00:28:15,865 --> 00:28:17,644 impactful research directions. 748 00:28:18,220 --> 00:28:20,240 So let's say you have two concepts 749 00:28:20,940 --> 00:28:23,600 that have never been started before together. 750 00:28:24,700 --> 00:28:26,000 Now the question is, 751 00:28:27,019 --> 00:28:28,160 will there be papers 752 00:28:28,460 --> 00:28:31,740 that started it? And the next question is, 753 00:28:31,740 --> 00:28:33,759 will those paper that studied this 754 00:28:34,195 --> 00:28:36,595 topics that have never been studied before, will 755 00:28:36,595 --> 00:28:37,734 they be impactful? 756 00:28:38,115 --> 00:28:38,775 Will they, 757 00:28:39,474 --> 00:28:40,775 create a lot of citations? 758 00:28:41,234 --> 00:28:42,615 And very surprisingly 759 00:28:42,914 --> 00:28:45,015 to us, this is also predictable. 760 00:28:46,410 --> 00:28:48,970 So now we can also predict in some 761 00:28:48,970 --> 00:28:52,430 way what future research directions could be impactful. 762 00:28:54,009 --> 00:28:56,170 Of course, what Felix has done, what is 763 00:28:56,170 --> 00:28:58,730 new, and what could, could be done and 764 00:28:58,730 --> 00:29:00,730 what might be done. And then I think 765 00:29:00,730 --> 00:29:03,644 the final question is what research directions 766 00:29:03,945 --> 00:29:05,005 are interesting 767 00:29:05,384 --> 00:29:06,205 for humans? 768 00:29:09,305 --> 00:29:10,045 For that, 769 00:29:11,224 --> 00:29:12,285 one could do, 770 00:29:12,904 --> 00:29:14,205 large scale evaluations, 771 00:29:15,384 --> 00:29:16,285 using humans. 772 00:29:16,599 --> 00:29:17,419 We have started, 773 00:29:18,039 --> 00:29:20,359 doing this, and I think there are thousand 774 00:29:20,359 --> 00:29:21,899 different things one can do. 775 00:29:23,159 --> 00:29:24,779 One thing I've seen 776 00:29:25,079 --> 00:29:25,899 in this whole, 777 00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:30,105 this whole range of work is the humans 778 00:29:30,404 --> 00:29:33,144 are exceptionally good in coming up with ideas, 779 00:29:33,284 --> 00:29:35,444 and it's really not clear where those ideas 780 00:29:35,444 --> 00:29:36,184 come from. 781 00:29:36,484 --> 00:29:38,404 I think there's a lot of a lot 782 00:29:38,404 --> 00:29:39,944 of things that we need to understand. 783 00:29:40,325 --> 00:29:42,644 From the human perspective, why are human create 784 00:29:42,644 --> 00:29:45,150 scientists? Where are those ideas coming from? That 785 00:29:45,150 --> 00:29:47,089 we can artificially recreate this. 786 00:29:48,029 --> 00:29:48,690 I see. 787 00:29:48,990 --> 00:29:51,409 And and what about, you know, this specific 788 00:29:51,470 --> 00:29:51,970 project, 789 00:29:52,669 --> 00:29:56,190 that that you, Felix, and, Mario are working 790 00:29:56,190 --> 00:29:56,595 on? 791 00:29:57,394 --> 00:29:59,474 Are you are are you following up this 792 00:29:59,474 --> 00:30:01,894 research? Are are you planning on improving 793 00:30:02,515 --> 00:30:03,734 your machine learning 794 00:30:04,275 --> 00:30:04,775 technique, 795 00:30:06,194 --> 00:30:08,515 or maybe applying it to more data? I 796 00:30:08,515 --> 00:30:10,515 suppose well, you have applied it to more 797 00:30:10,515 --> 00:30:12,779 data. What what what's next for you? Or 798 00:30:12,779 --> 00:30:14,640 are you moving on to something else? 799 00:30:15,580 --> 00:30:17,580 So there are a couple of kind of, 800 00:30:18,380 --> 00:30:20,940 obvious follow-up research directions that, 801 00:30:21,420 --> 00:30:22,559 one could pursue. 802 00:30:23,100 --> 00:30:23,660 There are, 803 00:30:24,955 --> 00:30:27,035 a couple of ideas about how to improve 804 00:30:27,035 --> 00:30:29,515 the embedding that we came up with, 805 00:30:30,394 --> 00:30:31,134 even further. 806 00:30:31,595 --> 00:30:33,695 One of these ideas would be that 807 00:30:34,075 --> 00:30:36,414 the kind of main application of our 808 00:30:37,035 --> 00:30:39,215 embedding was to kind of replace the information 809 00:30:39,275 --> 00:30:41,210 in the knowledge graph as Mavi 810 00:30:41,509 --> 00:30:42,809 mentioned earlier. But 811 00:30:43,109 --> 00:30:44,490 you don't necessarily 812 00:30:45,269 --> 00:30:46,869 need to view it in this kind of 813 00:30:46,869 --> 00:30:49,669 binary setting of either only using the knowledge 814 00:30:49,669 --> 00:30:51,990 graph or or embedding. You could also come 815 00:30:51,990 --> 00:30:54,315 up with some kind of combined representation of 816 00:30:54,535 --> 00:30:55,355 both that, 817 00:30:56,134 --> 00:30:58,535 takes kind of as much information as possible 818 00:30:58,535 --> 00:30:59,734 and then just kind of gives it to 819 00:30:59,734 --> 00:31:01,734 the machine learning model and lets it do 820 00:31:01,734 --> 00:31:02,394 its thing, 821 00:31:02,695 --> 00:31:03,195 basically. 822 00:31:04,055 --> 00:31:05,035 The other, 823 00:31:05,734 --> 00:31:07,595 obvious direction would be to, 824 00:31:08,134 --> 00:31:09,119 apply our methods 825 00:31:10,319 --> 00:31:11,619 to other fields. 826 00:31:12,319 --> 00:31:14,819 Like, on the archive alone, there are 827 00:31:15,119 --> 00:31:18,880 more than 15 other primary categories beyond quantum 828 00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:20,720 physics that we could try to use this 829 00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:22,579 method on where the data is basically 830 00:31:23,039 --> 00:31:25,285 publicly available and on the Internet ready to 831 00:31:25,285 --> 00:31:29,224 use. This includes topics like, mathematics, computer science, 832 00:31:29,525 --> 00:31:32,505 or economics or biology where we could also 833 00:31:32,724 --> 00:31:34,884 try our method on and see if we 834 00:31:34,884 --> 00:31:38,910 can find emergent research connections in these fields. 835 00:31:40,029 --> 00:31:41,630 And Mario, what about you? What are you 836 00:31:41,630 --> 00:31:43,250 looking forward to in the future? 837 00:31:44,269 --> 00:31:47,009 Yeah. So beyond things like predicting, 838 00:31:48,349 --> 00:31:50,529 more general properties like cetaceans 839 00:31:50,990 --> 00:31:51,490 and, 840 00:31:52,029 --> 00:31:53,730 maybe surprise and so on, 841 00:31:55,204 --> 00:31:55,704 one 842 00:31:56,164 --> 00:31:59,045 could one could probably make big steps into 843 00:31:59,045 --> 00:32:01,144 improving their AI models themselves 844 00:32:01,765 --> 00:32:03,464 by performing AI competitions. 845 00:32:04,244 --> 00:32:06,265 So I think the data that Felix, 846 00:32:07,285 --> 00:32:10,005 has is very well equipped for that, where 847 00:32:10,005 --> 00:32:11,990 you would have a pool of prize money 848 00:32:11,990 --> 00:32:15,669 and then a hidden dataset, and participants need 849 00:32:15,669 --> 00:32:16,809 to provide 850 00:32:17,509 --> 00:32:18,089 the best 851 00:32:18,470 --> 00:32:21,029 models that they can come up with to 852 00:32:21,029 --> 00:32:21,529 predict 853 00:32:22,875 --> 00:32:25,994 for predict, for instance, the future of, quantum 854 00:32:25,994 --> 00:32:26,494 physics. 855 00:32:27,755 --> 00:32:30,234 And then test in that case, we could 856 00:32:30,234 --> 00:32:30,734 compete, 857 00:32:31,595 --> 00:32:34,154 techniques like knowledge craft, the techniques that we 858 00:32:34,154 --> 00:32:36,095 have published in these papers, 859 00:32:37,670 --> 00:32:39,990 with many, many other techniques that other people 860 00:32:39,990 --> 00:32:42,549 come up with. And that is, I've seen 861 00:32:42,549 --> 00:32:44,490 this, now one time, 862 00:32:45,109 --> 00:32:47,829 very clearly that this is very useful. There 863 00:32:47,829 --> 00:32:50,410 are many, many diverse techniques that usually 864 00:32:50,789 --> 00:32:51,930 be in such competition, 865 00:32:52,375 --> 00:32:54,794 techniques that you alone would never think about. 866 00:32:55,894 --> 00:32:56,394 It's 867 00:32:57,494 --> 00:32:59,034 significantly more technical, 868 00:33:00,134 --> 00:33:01,194 ideas, significantly 869 00:33:01,654 --> 00:33:03,894 simpler ideas that you would not even believe 870 00:33:03,894 --> 00:33:05,034 that they might work. 871 00:33:05,740 --> 00:33:07,579 So that would be really great. And I 872 00:33:07,579 --> 00:33:08,240 think this 873 00:33:08,700 --> 00:33:10,460 type of data that we, 874 00:33:10,940 --> 00:33:13,579 prepared here would suit very well for such 875 00:33:13,579 --> 00:33:14,400 AI competitions. 876 00:33:15,419 --> 00:33:17,119 I see. And and Mario, 877 00:33:17,579 --> 00:33:19,839 you you mentioned the journal, Machine Learning 878 00:33:20,515 --> 00:33:21,575 Science and Technology. 879 00:33:23,315 --> 00:33:25,714 Can you and you're on the editorial board 880 00:33:25,714 --> 00:33:27,255 of that journal. Can 881 00:33:27,714 --> 00:33:29,154 you just give us a little bit of 882 00:33:29,154 --> 00:33:32,134 a flavor of what sort of physics related 883 00:33:32,674 --> 00:33:34,375 research the journal publishes? 884 00:33:35,690 --> 00:33:37,630 Yes. So this is 885 00:33:38,009 --> 00:33:40,329 probably one of the most important, if not 886 00:33:40,329 --> 00:33:41,150 the most important, 887 00:33:41,769 --> 00:33:42,990 journal in that 888 00:33:43,369 --> 00:33:44,509 field. Because 889 00:33:45,049 --> 00:33:46,430 machine learning research, 890 00:33:46,890 --> 00:33:49,789 getting it published in physics journals, 891 00:33:50,204 --> 00:33:50,944 can be 892 00:33:51,325 --> 00:33:52,944 quite challenging because, 893 00:33:53,644 --> 00:33:56,684 physicists are looking at different things that we 894 00:33:56,684 --> 00:33:58,704 might look at. Also publishing 895 00:33:59,484 --> 00:33:59,984 those, 896 00:34:01,005 --> 00:34:01,505 techniques 897 00:34:01,884 --> 00:34:02,865 in AI, 898 00:34:05,799 --> 00:34:08,140 conferences might also be very challenging because 899 00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:11,239 those people also look at very different things. 900 00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:13,719 So there was before this channel, there was 901 00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:15,719 really a gap where it's not clear how 902 00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:17,954 would you even publish such works. And now 903 00:34:17,954 --> 00:34:18,595 I think, 904 00:34:19,315 --> 00:34:20,454 MLST became 905 00:34:20,914 --> 00:34:21,414 the 906 00:34:21,875 --> 00:34:22,775 the two go 907 00:34:23,155 --> 00:34:23,655 address 908 00:34:23,954 --> 00:34:24,855 for exactly, 909 00:34:25,315 --> 00:34:26,135 such works. 910 00:34:26,675 --> 00:34:29,555 And then a lot of works on how 911 00:34:29,555 --> 00:34:30,179 you would, 912 00:34:31,059 --> 00:34:31,960 use new 913 00:34:32,260 --> 00:34:34,280 ideas for machine learning in 914 00:34:34,739 --> 00:34:36,839 physics and chemistry and biology. 915 00:34:37,300 --> 00:34:39,619 Our work is a little bit, outlier because 916 00:34:39,619 --> 00:34:41,699 it even goes a step further to kind 917 00:34:41,699 --> 00:34:43,844 of meet the science, but you see that 918 00:34:44,005 --> 00:34:46,344 MLC is, quite open in, 919 00:34:46,804 --> 00:34:47,304 disrespect. 920 00:34:48,085 --> 00:34:48,585 So, 921 00:34:49,045 --> 00:34:51,364 that's why I'm super happy that the channel 922 00:34:51,364 --> 00:34:53,844 exists and also super happy that they invited 923 00:34:53,844 --> 00:34:56,984 me to join the, editorial board. 924 00:34:57,969 --> 00:35:00,849 Well, that's great. Thanks. Thanks, Felix, and Mario 925 00:35:00,849 --> 00:35:02,710 as well. Thanks for coming on the podcast 926 00:35:02,769 --> 00:35:04,769 and talking about your research. It's, 927 00:35:05,250 --> 00:35:06,070 it's a fascinating 928 00:35:06,369 --> 00:35:08,469 application of, machine learning, 929 00:35:09,170 --> 00:35:10,630 and artificial intelligence. 930 00:35:10,930 --> 00:35:14,054 And, yeah, we hope to, to learn more 931 00:35:14,054 --> 00:35:16,054 about it from you and your colleagues. Thank 932 00:35:16,054 --> 00:35:16,554 you. 933 00:35:17,094 --> 00:35:19,355 Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye. 934 00:35:27,730 --> 00:35:30,930 That was Felix Frohnert of the University of 935 00:35:30,930 --> 00:35:34,469 Leiden and Mario Krenn of the Max Planck 936 00:35:34,530 --> 00:35:36,710 Institute for the Science of Light. 937 00:35:37,170 --> 00:35:39,510 Thanks to both of them for a fascinating 938 00:35:39,730 --> 00:35:40,230 discussion. 939 00:35:41,195 --> 00:35:44,155 You can find their open access paper in 940 00:35:44,155 --> 00:35:44,815 the journal, 941 00:35:45,114 --> 00:35:46,175 Machine Learning, 942 00:35:46,554 --> 00:35:47,775 Science and Technology, 943 00:35:48,394 --> 00:35:51,135 which can be found on the IOP Science 944 00:35:51,195 --> 00:35:51,695 website. 945 00:35:52,394 --> 00:35:53,775 Just look for the title, 946 00:35:54,279 --> 00:35:54,779 Discovering 947 00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:56,299 Emergent Connections 948 00:35:56,759 --> 00:35:58,859 in Quantum Physics Research 949 00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:01,739 via Dynamic Word Embeddings. 950 00:36:02,679 --> 00:36:04,519 I'm afraid that's all the time we have 951 00:36:04,519 --> 00:36:05,819 for this week's podcast. 952 00:36:06,454 --> 00:36:08,375 I'll sign off with a thanks to our 953 00:36:08,375 --> 00:36:12,235 producer, Fred Ailes, and an invitation for you 954 00:36:12,375 --> 00:36:13,994 to join us next week.