Speaker
Description
To achieve some of the biggest physics discoveries in the last decade -- e.g. finding definitive evidence of the Higgs boson, gravitational waves, and black holes -- physicists had to radically re-imagine the paradigm of working in small teams and instead construct large-scale experimental collaborations of hundreds or even thousands of scientists. The recent success of foundation models in various domains begs the question: could our scientific conventions yet again be restricting our access to major discoveries? In this talk, I propose that an interdisciplinary, multi-modal approach to fundamental physics research will be critical to finally answering the grand scientific mysteries about our Universe that have thus far eluded our usual strategies. In particular, I will present some recent work from my team at Polymathic AI exploring how we might form our first scientific foundation models, and I'll also share my perspectives on how we should strive to shape such models to reflect our highest priorities as scientists.
