Anil Ananthaswamy

AI Comes Up with Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work. | Quanta Magazine Artificial intelligence software is designing novel experimental protocols that improve upon the work of human physicists, although the humans are still “doing a lot of baby-sitting.”

A nice article by @anilananth.bsky.social on using AI to explore design spaces, find unexpected solutions, (re)discover symmetries, and propose new relationships featuring @yuqirose.bsky.social @mariokrenn.bsky.social & myself.
Note AI ≠ LLMs in this piece.
www.quantamagazine.org/ai-comes-up-...

AI Comes Up with Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work. | Quanta Magazine Artificial intelligence software is designing novel experimental protocols that improve upon the work of human physicists, although the humans are still “doing a lot of baby-sitting.”

"AI Comes Up with Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work." by @anilananth.bsky.social @quantamagazine.bsky.social:

www.quantamagazine.org/ai-comes-up-...

Covering our work with Rana Adhikari @ligo.org on discovering GW detectors & work by @yuqirose.bsky.social & @kylecranmer.bsky.social on ...

Thank you, David

Cover to Why Machines Learn by Anil Ananthaswamy

Finished reading @anilananth.bsky.social's book, Why Machines Learn. This was an excellent read. I feel that the context and history for which science develops helps my understanding. His prose and explanations were better than anything else I have yet to encounter in my Computer Science education.

SFO has a nice collection of AI books

@adambecker.bsky.social @anilananth.bsky.social @emilymbender.bsky.social @alexhanna.bsky.social @summerfieldlab.bsky.social @sayash.bsky.social‬ @randomwalker.bsky.social‬

4/4 Therein I think lies a message: most of us do what we do because it means something to us, and we will resist using AI for that task. In my case it's writing; for someone else it might be visual art. It's for each of us to ask why we do what we do and what place an AI has in that endeavor.

3/4 ...Others will have different reasons. And Gen AI might serve them. I'm holding out, as many are. I have, however, used DALL-E/diffusion models on occasion to generate images. Visual elements are not my forte. I can imagine a visual artist being aghast at the use of image generation models.

2/4 ... I became a writer to pay attention to the world of ideas and experience the indescribable feeling of putting your thoughts into words as precisely and poetically as possible. Even if what I'm writing about is machine learning and AI. But the world is changing ...

1/4 These days most writers, including me, get asked: "Will you use AI to help you write?" My answer is: No. Not because I'm inherently against the idea, but because it undercuts the very reason I became a writer...

"Why machines learn" by @anilananth.bsky.social is an amazing book that teaches the fundamental math concepts behind machine learning and artificial intelligence. I lost count of the "aha!" moments I experienced while reading this masterpiece. I loved it! #AI #math

When I proposed WHY MACHINES LEARN in Oct 2020, to my then editor Stephen Morrow, @carpenter512.bsky.social, I was sure he'd say no to a book full of math & equations. But he saw something in the proposal that even I hadn't and said yes, and I'm grateful for that! Got to thank him today in person.

"Why machines learn" by Anil Ananthaswamy

I have just started reading this fantastic book by @anilananth.bsky.social. I look forward to diving into the hardcore #math behind machine learning! It will be a challenging journey, but a rewarding one. 🤖

Looking forward to reading this @rowhoop.bsky.social ! Thanks...

Thank you @ganyet.bsky.social. I love this line about WHY MACHINES LEARN: "This book is like an invitation to enter Mago Pop's workshop to realize that magic doesn't exist: that it's all mathematics, engineering, and a lot, a lot of human intelligence." I had to look up Mago Pop and Sant Jordi :-)

The Centrality of Bayes’s Theorem for Machine Learning — Anil Ananthaswamy It’s hard to overstate just how important Bayes’s Theorem — something that Thomas Bayes, English minister and mathematician, came up with in the 1700s — is for making sense of machine learning. Bu...

The Centrality of Bayes's Theorem for Machine Learning.

It’s hard to overstate just how important Bayes’s Theorem — something that Thomas Bayes came up with in the 1700s — is for machine learning. But the theorem challenges our intuitions. Here’s a brief intro: anilananthaswamy.com/why-machines...

The Hubble Tension Is Becoming a Hubble Crisis A long-simmering disagreement over the universe’s present-day expansion rate shows no signs of resolution, leaving experts increasingly vexed

Came out of my AL/ML bubble to write a 'crisis in cosmology' story, about a new study that uses TRGB stars to scale a new cosmic distance ladder to measure the Hubble constant; the tension persists...for @scientificamerican.bsky.social @leebillings.bsky.social scientificamerican.com/article/the-...

"For the first time, we can...get performant neural networks that mimic complex human & animal cognition," said @suryaganguli.bsky.social speaking on the symbiosis of AI & neuroscience at the Simons Institute. "That's remarkable and exciting. Caveats...to follow" simons.berkeley.edu/talks/surya-...

YouTube video by Simons Institute Andrew Gordon Wilson | Polylogues

I had a great time talking with @anilananth.bsky.social as part of the Simons Institute Polylogues. We cover universal learning, generalization phenomena, how transformers are both surprisingly general but also limited, and the difference between statistics and ML! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aja0...

I went through my RL bookmarks, because it seems like finally the rest of the world has caught up to my world, I rediscovered this gem 💎 mpatacchiola.github.io/blog/2016/12... although I suspect nobody wants to learn RL this way now 😜

Everyone is talking about DeepSeek's impact on industry. But another huge impact is the leveling of playing field between academia and industry: if these efficiency numbers bear out, then academia can both use LLMs and study/research them at scale!

These two books, by @anilananth.bsky.social and @tomchivers.bsky.social, are the first two books in a very long time that I read in their entirety without significant pause or other diversion along the way.

I cannot recommend them enough!

#booksky #dataSkyence

As always, @rao2z.bsky.social has a way with words and speaks his mind in this Machine Learning Street Talk episode: "We should be looking for secrets of Nature, because Nature won't tell us. But we are now looking for secrets of OpenAI."

youtube.com/clip/UgkxCH1...

This lecture is primarily about how animal brains have evolved, but in so doing Paul Cisek helps illuminate why artificial intelligence based on large-language models is fundamentally insufficent in reaching anything resembling human intelligence (perhaps even lampray intelligence).

Thank you Rohit

Picture of book “Why Machines Learn” by Anil Ananthaswamy

tis excellent

Thank you @anilananth.bsky.social

Philosophy & Theory of Neuroscience Conference 🧠 next week @ Chapman & available via zoom.Talks by @drmichaellevin.bsky.social @meganakpeters.bsky.social Newsome, Yassa, Roskies, Carolyn Parkinson, Frederick Eberhardt & many others!

www.chapman.edu/scst/confere...

#philsky #philsci #neuroskyence

A gentle reminder that you should always resist the temptation to tag a creative person into a negative review of their work. It doesn't matter what your intentions are, it's kind of an asshole maneuver. You are free to say whatever you like, of course. Making it their problem, however, is not kind.

As of January 2025, Kai Polsterer is the new Scientific Director of HITS, taking over from Tilmann Gneiting who had been Scientific Director for the last 2 years. The new deputy Scientific Director will be Rebecca Wade (@rebecca-wade.bsky.social).

Read more here: ow.ly/HMlS50UBKUg

Photos ©HITS

Happy birthday, Michael!

In good company with @anilananth.bsky.social's book!