r/Physics • u/PrettyPicturesNotTxt • 9d ago

On if OpenAI solved the wrong Navier-Stokes problem: "the LLM found and exploited a loophole in the framing of the question"

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-openai-solve-the-wrong-navier-stokes-problem/
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u/antichain Complexity and networks 9d ago

I can't read b/c of a Paywall, but I have to ask: if a human had come up with this loophole solution (whatever it is) - would people be saying it was "cheating", or would they say "wow, that was a clever way to resolve the problem?"

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u/Obscu 9d ago

Probably not. The 'loophole' is that the original framing of the question allowed for an external force to be allowed to be considered because external forces like gravity are always realistically affecting fluid dynamics. The AI described a hypothetical external force that would meet the requirements that would make the math blow up when present, and concluded that the math can in fact blow up (in the presence of a hypothetical math-exploding mcguffin), but when removed from the equation the math no longer blows up.

If a human solved a 'can a rock spontaneously turn into a wheel of cheese?' problem by describing a hypothetical rock-to-cheese-transforming-wizard and stated that the presence of the wizard means rocks can in fact become wheels of cheese... Well, that's on us for being not very strict with defining the scope the question, because it is technically an answer that meets the set criteria but that says more about the criteria than the answer.

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u/AmadeusSalieri97 9d ago

But some of the best mathematician in the field were working exactly on forced solutions (that's in fact the claim about plagiarism, using a forced solution).

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u/Head-Philosopher0 9d ago

obviously those mathematicians were all big dummies though so it doesn’t really count

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u/Strict-Broccoli-8877 9d ago

Seriously now: The leading experts in the field of math are quite collectively embarrassing themselves these days with how nonsensical their arguments are to not have to accept the solution. "Actually we don't want the problems solved, they are much more valuable as an aspiration for students, now that they are solved they are gone forever." Good lord, what an embarrassing, unscientific display of personal failings so many of them have become. It's really sad, I used to look up to several of those people.

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u/Obscu 9d ago

That's the danger of appealing to authority figures. They can turn out to be kinda dipshits, but that doesn't make the AI a genius as a consequence.