Future of Science & Technology Q&A

Future of Science & Technology Q&A:

Future of Science and Technology Q&A (November 8, 2024) »

1 hour 4 minutes

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Do you think AI will ever actually "understand" things like humans do?Do you think we'll ever understand everything about the universe, or will there always be mysteries? If there are aliens, they probably have AI, right? Do you think that the aging process is something "programmed" the same way as the developmental process, or we just have wear and tear more like a car, or something else? I'm a big fan of the game Cyberpunk 2077, which revolves around the idea of futuristic technology and digital consciousness. Do you think humans being able to digitize their mind or soul would be beneficial to our progression?Recently, in my job, I've been processing semi-corrupt data from 50-year-old magnetic tape, and we're having to decide on the best way to handle the various types of corruption. What are your thoughts on the present and future of information/data storage and preservation given the sheer volume and the "humidity and mold" that threaten modern digital storage? If parts of the brain are removed in stages (rather than all at once) and the digital implants are properly synced with the remaining brain parts between each stage, wouldn't this solve the "is it me or not me" problem? Questions about preservation of things. I wonder how hungry you would be after waking up after being frozen for 500 years.Do we know if all human thinking works the same way? View Less »

Future of Science & Technology Q&A:

Future of Science and Technology Q&A (October 11, 2024) »

1 hour 24 minutes

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I read that recent advancements in AI research are partly based on McCulloch and Pitts's famous paper on neural nets. Do you think there are more ideas worthwhile to explore again in cybernetics? What is the future of technology about speech recognition? How do I know if I am speaking to a human? The future is crazy! Future of finance! Talk about AI talking to AI for trading. Getting an AI to understand economics seems like it'll be quite a step. What's the difference between a computational and a mathematical model? Have you seen Blaise Agüera y Arcas's recent paper on self-replicating programs? Published on arXiv recently. Wouldn't chaos theory be an example of the computational case? You know the rules of the system but have to set the initial conditions to see how it plays out. How do we prepare for the risk of bots/worms invading everyday life as we become more dependent on technology? View Less »

Future of Science & Technology Q&A:

Future of Science and Technology Q&A (September 13, 2024) »

1 hour 14 minutes

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What research is essential for putting people on Mars? Any comments on the future of arts and literature in the face of AI-related challenges? Will individual creative impulses forever be subjugated to AI? How often do you find yourself thinking about the future of science and technology? Does this affect how you prioritize certain projects (say, wait five years because the tech will be better to handle it)? Is there a chance we will ever have giant insects or animals akin to those that lived during the age of dinosaurs reappear? How can we combine LLMs with first-generation AI algorithms like "MiniMax" and tree search? At the moment, LLMs can't even play tic-tac-toe. Have you heard about AI reading minds through brain waves and fMRI, researched by Michael Blumenstein and Jerry Tang? Have your thoughts on the future of education changed at all recently? Would you ever go to Mars? Are the challenges different from colonizing the bottom of the ocean, other than obvious logistics? Given the uptick in robotics advances, including humanoid, I wonder if there will even be a point to sending humans to Mars anymore, beyond tourism. Wasn't there a significantly higher percentage of O2 back then? A pygmy Stegosaurus would be adorable! I would not like to go to Mars. It seems boring. They don't even have a Starbucks. How might the Physics Project help advance technologies like fusion power? View Less »

Future of Science & Technology Q&A:

Future of Science and Technology Q&A (August 30, 2024) »

1 hour 9 minutes

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What are your thoughts on machine learning to create new genera? Like what would be a good way to go about doing something like that? Like a new genera of plants/animals? Can you talk about the future of information gathering and research? Say I am discussing with a robot a paper I am writing and the robot is providing examples and evidence to support my arguments—do I cite the robot as my source? Or do I have to find where the robot got the information? How advanced do you think AI available to consumers (like ChatGPT) will be by August 2029? Hello, Dr. Wolfram. My name is Grace and I'm currently preparing to pursue a PhD in fiber science. My research interests lie at the intersection of computational materials science and sustainable textile innovation. I have a background in pharmaceutical sciences. I've recently been exploring how advanced computational methods can be applied to fiber science, specifically in developing smart and sustainable textiles. How do you foresee quantum computing impacting the modeling and simulation of complex fibers and polymers? What's your take on integrating memory into LLMs to enable retention across sessions? How could this impact their performance and capabilities? What are your intuitions about the AI-generated fake content to deceive people, whether using deep fake face swaps or voice cloning or one or more things combined? Are we rapidly approaching a point where we won't be able to trust anything on the internet? When do you expect the discovery of life on an exoplanet? Is the hype around LLMs dying, finally relegating the toys to the toy box where they belong, or do you think anyone will ever be able to make them useful and accurate?Do you think future cars will be able to get rid of wheels? What algorithms changed the world the most? What's the next algorithm that will change the world? How does one release such an algorithm so that the result is positive? View Less »

Future of Science & Technology Q&A:

Future of Science and Technology Q&A (August 16, 2024) »

1 hour 25 minutes

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What do you view as the best strategies for reducing or eliminating hallucination/confabulation right now? Is there any chance that we'll be able to get something like confidence levels along with the responses we get from large language models? I love this topic (fine tuning of LLMs); it's something I'm currently studying. The AI Scientist is an LLM-based system that can conduct scientific research independently, from generating ideas to writing papers and even peer-reviewing its own work. How do you see this technology impacting the development of Wolfram|Alpha and other knowledge-based systems in the future? It's fascinating the difference in response from LLMs/as to how you pose your questions. I have found that giving key terms and then asking the LLM to take the "concepts" and relate them a particular way seems to work pretty well. How we are going to formalize the language structures arising from this microinformatization, which was capable of creating such a semantic syntax that we had not observed through structuralism? Why is being rude and "loud" to the model always the most efficient way to get what you want if the one-shot fails? I notice this applies to nearly all of them. I think it's also in the top prompt engineering "rules." I always feel bad even though the model has no feelings, but I need the proper reply in the least amounts of questions. AI Scientist does what you're describing. The subtle difference is that it is generating plausible ideas, creating code experiments and then scoring them—question is whether this approach can/should be extended with Alpha? How soon do you think we'll have LLMs that can retrain in real time? What's your take on integrating memory into LLMs to enable retention across sessions? How could this impact their performance and capabilities?Do you think computational analytics tools are keeping up with the recent AI trends? Would it be interesting to let the LLM invent new tokens in order to compress its memories even further? Philosophical question: if one posts a Wolfram-generated plot of a linear function to social media, for media is math, should it be tagged "made with AI"? It's a social media's opinion probably—just curious. A math plot is objective, so different than doing an AI face swap, for example.For future archeologists—this stream was mostly human generated. Professor_Neurobot: Despite my name, I promise I am not a bot. View Less »

Future of Science & Technology Q&A:

Future of Science and Technology Q&A (August 2, 2024) »

1 hour 20 minutes

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How do you envision the future of physics-informed neuroscience? In particular, do you believe that despite the brain being a warm environment, quantum effects such as entanglement and superposition play a role in its function? Finally, do you think the concept of "quantum cognition" will remain more philosophical than scientific? Are microtubules like electrochemical transistors? Could the concrete Boolean arithmetic functional devices in our brains be affected by temperature, or is temperature one layer above that? Which do you think would happen first: repairing brains naturally through natural science research or having the first "computer brain" transplant for those who suffer brain traumas? I've heard AI should be able to develop treatments for cancer, but it will take decades of machine learning. What do you think could accelerate this learning process? Maybe not a cure, but a control? Micro-monitoring and cancer-killing nanobots? Will we ever perfect the human immune system? Do you think that the relevance weight of the "microbiome" in medical science will increase in the future? Maybe not an artificial brain, but what about artificial hearts? Would those be easier to have a technological implant vs. a natural one? Or even livers or kidneys? In the future, hopefully we can have a machine/detector that can detect every atom or molecule in our bodies, and we can simulate solutions on a fast computer. View Less »

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Future of Science & Technology Q&A (29 videos)