AI Just Found Alternative Physics Independently
Pick up any physics textbook and you’ll find formula after formula that explains how things sway, fly, turn, and stop. The formula describes actions that we can observe, but behind each can be a series of factors that are not immediately apparent. Now, a new AI program developed by researchers at Columbia University appears to have found its own alternative physics. After being shown videos of physical phenomena on Earth, AI did not rediscover the current variables we used; instead, it actually comes up with a new variable to explain what it sees. To be clear, this does not mean that our current physics is flawed or that there is a more suitable model to explain the world around us. (Einstein’s laws have proven to be very powerful.) But they can only exist because they are built on a pre-existing ‘language’ of theories and principles established by centuries of tradition. Given an alternate timeline where other minds tackle the same problem from a slightly different perspective, wou