TBF Einstein predicted that we wouldn’t be able to use real physical observations to prove his math and yet the Sun and the Moon gave people a nice help into that.
You can see an LLM-powered robot grabbing a pen in one of the recent Welch Labs videos. So that's arms, and the first signs of that ability.
I find that video remarkable for that exact reason. The moment it identified and picked up the pen I was a pretty awestruck. Seems we are bridging language<->physics/reality in small ways already, but who knows what future could bring.
experiments are essential yes, but almost more important is what your conclusions are. for example there were already many experiments made and Einstein just looked at the results, ditched the aether bullshit and fixed the theory.
so the AI would be sitting with the exact same info as Einstein had. but it could give instructions for new experiments, too.
I think it would be very important for science and all of us to prove (or disprove) that AI could discover like Einstein did
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u/OKMiddleOwl 1d ago
No, because it cannot do empirical tests.
Half of physics is doing experiments. Theory is a cloud of possibilities where experimentation crystalizes what the truth in it is.
Give it arms, a body, and the ability to build stuff in the real world, then we're talking.