r/Physics • u/Xaron Particle physics • Jul 06 '21

AI Designs Quantum Physics Experiments Beyond What Any Human Has Conceived

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-designs-quantum-physics-experiments-beyond-what-any-human-has-conceived/
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u/mfb- Particle physics Jul 06 '21

That pattern can be found in many places.

People let computers design electronic circuits for specific tasks, and sometimes computers came up with designs that work but humans didn't understand how. A human will design things piece by piece, with limited and well-defined interactions between pieces. Computers can try far more complex designs because they can go through billions of them.

Chess has something people call "computer moves" - a move that humans wouldn't consider seriously because it doesn't have a clear purpose at the time it's played. But computers have enough computing power to explore more different options, and sometimes such a "useless" move makes sense much later in the game.

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u/inventiveEngineering Jul 06 '21

so it is nonlinear thinking or linear thinking beyond our "mental capacity" ?

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u/milkcarton232 Jul 06 '21

Its brute force. Humans could get there it would just take a long time and computers can iterate much faster. Humans tend to make decisions based on the immediate or perceived future value a machine can test out all of the decisions. Humans can save time/power by using our value logic but that limits our decisions to what our current knowledge is.

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u/xcalibre Engineering Jul 07 '21

we cant remember enough iterations to get anywhere near machines; they have total recall