I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell I recently read that owning and posting shitty fascist claptrap on a giant, ai oozing, propaganda mill of a social media platform does much worse for physics than telescopes or colliders ever could.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell I agree with the sentiment (anti-intellectualism and ai are bad), but I've heard from reputable scientists that physics and other science fields have stagnated due to compounding reasons (mostly related to poor funding). What's off-putting about your claim is that 1) you're basing "his claim" from a summary on Twitter (ad hominem), and 2) you've made us beg some questions without building much context other than "some smart people." I think you do not address issues with not just the data but the arguments, which AI can certainly help with cross-textual analysis (and there have been studies, which I don't think you'll find convincing so I'm not going to go look everything up). I don't think from the context (a twitter post) that anyone wants to cut scientific spending in research, but there certainly people who have and will.
Partially what frustrates me -- isn't your post but just the uncritical support it received despite the ad hominem, which is just not super helpful and an echo chamber. Let's just say we'd rather fund humans do the research and call it a day without having to raise our blood pressure over someone we don't like.
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R relay@relay.an.exchange shared this topic
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell
To those in the know, Musk exposes his ignorance with such stupid talk. To those not in the know, he exposes his arrogance. -
I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
What is slowing discovery is a poorly conceived really big spaceship money pit.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell
And his plan that relies on huge constellations of giant AI satellites somehow ISN'T "expensive hardware?" -
I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell you could build a whole lot of Superconducting Super Colliders and JWSTs for the cost of one gigantic "AI" fraud company.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
He also believes we live in a simulation. I assume that he thinks that the simulation is being run to study us and thus all that physics stuff is just “background” decorations on the fish tank.
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I've also seen smart people tie themselves into knots trying to defend the original claim.
"He just means big science is expensive."
"He just means that AI can help with data analysis."
"He just means that string theory is a dead end."But that is not the claim, and the efforts to justify it only make the argument even stranger.
@coreyspowell I mean, he's the guy who, despite being head dude of the largest satellite operator in the world, argued satellites couldn't be a problem for astronomy because they'd be in darkness at night… so yeah, I'd agree there's a much more straightforward explanation for his apparently nonsensical statements https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/113817738470795433
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I've also seen smart people tie themselves into knots trying to defend the original claim.
"He just means big science is expensive."
"He just means that AI can help with data analysis."
"He just means that string theory is a dead end."But that is not the claim, and the efforts to justify it only make the argument even stranger.
@coreyspowell trying to defend this man's stream of weird takes is a thankless, exhausting and fruitless endeavour. Idk why many still do it.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell billionaires:
no need to look inside, there's no point, introspection is deadalso billionaires: there is also no need to look outside
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
That post sounds like it came out of a particular 2026 AI crevasse, the speculations of the LLM are more impressive to it than doing the work to find out the ground truth from actual reality. Until you tell it to stop guessing and instrument so we can find out what actually happens.
Humans know by bitter experience, reality beats everything, and one word that definitely came from the heart of your problem in reality, is worth more than all the LLM's speculation.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell #ElonMusk Proves Yet Again That He's Just Not Very Bright. America's dumbest smart guy strikes again with an idiotic take on subways. https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-proves-yet-again-that-hes-just-not-very-brigh-1848835670
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
Elon is a fake physicist. He bought a degree from Penn and he pretends that he is a physicist, but he is really just like Bill Gates -- nothing but a ruthless businessman and entitled rich guy.
If he were a real physicist he would know that his dream of being on Mars has a few, shall we say, difficulties. The main one being radiation once he is outside the blanket of our atmosphere.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
This is what happens when you surround yourself with people who never call you out on your bullshit.
It doesn't go any deeper than that.
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I've also seen smart people tie themselves into knots trying to defend the original claim.
"He just means big science is expensive."
"He just means that AI can help with data analysis."
"He just means that string theory is a dead end."But that is not the claim, and the efforts to justify it only make the argument even stranger.
@coreyspowell well, for analysis of ever increasing amount of astronomical data, some kind of automation is needed anyway. So maybe it would be better use of AI, than all this chatbot nonsense.
The huge colliders are special case, that now there is AFAIK no special prediction in physics, which can be confirmed or falsified at higher energies. Somehow it is probably not the direction to find any new physics (which would be cool). Also the dark matter detectors are somehow infamous as spending huge amount of money for (predictably) finding nothing.
The situation in astronomy is very different and of course we need new telescopes and new ideas for telescopes. Lot of them would have to be placed in space, probably.
So, somehow the discussion "what next in science" makes sense, and I would not probably bet on particle colliders to be the right answer. Still, over-relying on LLM-líke AIs si ridiculous. Of course, science needs new (not necesarily "more") empirical data and also, for huge amounts of data, some automation to process them.
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@coreyspowell trying to defend this man's stream of weird takes is a thankless, exhausting and fruitless endeavour. Idk why many still do it.
@abesamma their paycheck depends on it
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell By the way it's a luck that AI works "in the cloud" and not in expensive datacenters connected to us with expensive high-speed networks.
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@coreyspowell you could build a whole lot of Superconducting Super Colliders and JWSTs for the cost of one gigantic "AI" fraud company.
@oddhack @coreyspowell one or ten per data center at the very least.
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I've also seen smart people tie themselves into knots trying to defend the original claim.
"He just means big science is expensive."
"He just means that AI can help with data analysis."
"He just means that string theory is a dead end."But that is not the claim, and the efforts to justify it only make the argument even stranger.
@coreyspowell and even if AI happens to come up with some new theory (!) someone needs to test it, and that takes time and real experiments and observations.
And coming up with a new theory is based on what we have already observed and tested. At any point in time, gobbling up that real data and finding a new pattern may, possibly, be quicker with AI. But you still have to have that data. And frankly it is not simply about finding a new pattern. It needs actual insight.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell Elon - This is impossible. AI's knowledge wil never become bigger, better, greater than the information that has been stolen on the net, AI itself does not research. Human thinking is the core element of scientific progress.
