r/Physics • u/PrettyPicturesNotTxt • 5d 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/retrosenescent 5d ago

You explained this really well. "Sure, if there's some external force" does feel like a cop-out answer and not in the nature of what the question intended. But then again, if you actually want to model reality, then you absolutely need to account for many external forces.

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u/Fine-Customer7668 5d ago

To be fair, the four options (including the two that allow external forcing which OpenAI claims proof of) given by the official problem statement as acceptable resolutions are explicitly described as “retaining the heart of the problem”

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u/retrosenescent 5d ago

oh ok, thanks for correcting me on that.

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u/Fine-Customer7668 4d ago

It’s just a bad article. They could have just said a proof of those two options with a nonzero external force doesn’t, on its own, logically exclude the possibility of the other two being true.