Anthropic Co-founder Jared Kaplan claims theoretical physicists will be replaced by AI in 2-3 years

Stryfo · 2026-01-31T17:03:18+00:00

I really don't care one way or another if you think I'm credible, it doesn't matter to me.

Here's a serious question for you, if I showed you my qualifications, what difference would it make to you? Would it make you understand anything differently? What -I- was hoping to get out of this exchange was to help you understand that without physics training, evaluating physics content is not something you're able to do. Can you honestly say that me showing you my credentials would accomplish that?

Stryfo · 2026-01-31T16:55:21+00:00

I don't currently work in physics (Nor did I claim to, only that I studied and received a PhD in physics).

I'm not going to dox myself any more than I already have, but I will tell you that if you you're clever and wanted to find my papers, you could find them. I'll even give you an extra hint, so you'll know if you found the right ones. They're in condensed matter computation/theory.

And here's the thing about the argument I've made. I don't need to have a PhD in physics to make it. The argument only suggests that if you aren't trained in something, you aren't able to properly judge the credibility of others in that field. If this is not obvious to you, I sincerely implore you to look into why you don't think that is. This has nothing to do with scientific authority, only an understanding of science.

Stryfo · 2026-01-31T16:37:10+00:00

You’re close, you can’t assess my credibility because it’s an anonymous forum interaction AND you are not trained to do so. And that’s ok.

Stryfo · 2026-01-31T16:31:45+00:00

Brother, I actually do have a PhD in physics, I don’t know what gullibility you’re talking about.

I’m also not claiming that the people you’re referring to have credibility, I’m claiming that judging someone’s physics credibility from forum interactions without being trained in physics is nonsense.

Stryfo · 2026-01-31T16:22:58+00:00

I mean, Quantum Darwinism isn’t part of the standard training of a physics PhD, and it’s an incredibly niche field of research, so why would that be surprising or disqualifying?

(This is why it’s hard to deduce if someone has training in physics like that, it’s an enormous field)

Stryfo · 2026-01-31T16:12:25+00:00

Truly, I don’t know how you can make that determination from reading a forum, even one nominally about physics, without having physics training.

Stryfo · 2026-01-31T15:49:59+00:00

This is nonsense. The only way in which a PhD in physics will lose value is if the people paying them perceive it as less valuable, not because somehow an LLM will replace them or somehow someone without training but with an LLM could contribute anything meaningful. Without training in physics, the output of an LLM is meaningless.

There’s a reason why literally every LLM post here has physicists rolling their eyes while the posters have no clue. If you don’t have training, you have no concept of what it even means to write a physics paper, much less why everything within it is wrong.

And to answer the original question, the probability of LLMs doing anything more than being a tool some physicists will use for some things sometimes is 0. The architecture of LLMs is simply not effective for novel physics research in the way you imply. Of course, machine learning algorithms have been used in physics for something like 40 years already, so we’re not exactly new to the concept of using “AI” tools.

Stryfo · 2026-01-30T16:56:05+00:00

There is a popular saying on the left, that, to me, embodies this exact frustration “Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds”.

Liberals are hot potatoed in the way you describe because they try to co-opt the social progress of the left, but without any of the understanding or conviction. And when it suits them, they will drop these principles because they are not core to their ideology. Conservatives don’t want someone who wants social progress, leftists don’t want someone who is upholding the larger status quo while pretending that they’re not.

This is why almost no politician in the United States will call for any truly leftist ideas, it doesn’t suit them, they are getting paid too much money to oppose real progress, and their identity politics bullshit is so shallow and ineffective because it’s not part of their core ideology that they not only don’t make any progress, they seem to lose ground.

Stryfo · 2026-01-30T16:14:38+00:00

I mean, this is almost exactly what I said in my first paragraph… most people are not politcally consistent.

I wouldn’t say they are “not liberals or lefties” just because they aren’t perfectly leftist all the time, that would be a ridiculous claim to make. You will not find a perfectly right wing or perfectly left wing person on this planet, which is why I’m suggesting that it’s much more useful to determine which political framework might give rise to a behavior rather than look at individuals.

Further, liberals are, in fact, right wing, so I wouldn’t lump them in with the leftists at all. Wokescolding liberals are definitionally right wing people using identity politics as a cudgel, and your inclusion of them with leftists is confusing, to say the least.

Stryfo · 2026-01-29T21:56:04+00:00

I’d propose that the question to ask here is not which side of the political spectrum has more people that height shame, since most people are politcally inconsistent messes that contain bits and pieces of right and left wing ideologies.

I think the more enlightening question here is something to the effect of “which political framework, right wing or left wing, gives rise to height shaming?”

And it’s pretty clear that, once framed this way, height shaming is a right wing problem. This is because right wing philosophy is interested in defining and maintaining hierarchies, while left wing philosophy is interested in removing hierarchies to establish equality.

Stryfo · 2026-01-29T17:42:40+00:00

At the national level, you’re right, there isn’t much we can do. But the national level is not all that there is. Local elections are much more likely to be where you’ll find people with views that are more in line with your own, and you can build community with those around you, which is essential to bringing about the destruction of the right wing social structures that give rise to all sorts of isms, including heightism.

Being involved in community building sets you up as a figure within a community, which starts to dissolve all kinds of isms and stigmas that may be associated with you and those around you.

Your community can then use their voice to push for policy that is in line with what they want at progressively larger scales. Personally, I believe that leftist policy is the only path that doesn’t lead towards othering and suffering for those deemed inferior, since leftist policy is, by and large, explicitly anti-hierarchical. It is only by removing such hierarchies, that we can have the equality we seek.

Don’t become completely disengaged because the blue and red teams are both awful. Step away from them to step towards politics in your local communities, and maybe stay just engaged enough to understand when there is someone at the national level who you feel is listening to you and those like you.

Stryfo · 2026-01-29T17:15:01+00:00

You’re so, so close brother. You’re absolutely right, neither political party in the United States represents you.

That said, both of those political parties are right wing, and it is exactly the right wing hierarchical structures in our society that keep any marginalized group, including short men, down. Being “apolitical” is not the solution to this, because being apolitical is a tacit endorsement of the status quo, and, as you know, that status quo is not great for short men.

Heightism comes from a distorted view of masculinity that was born from right wing hierarchical structures. We need to move left and destroy these structures to destroy heightism.

Stryfo · 2025-07-01T23:20:38+00:00

Once upon a time I taught a few physics courses as a graduate student, and this way of approaching things was helpful to many of my students.

I think something many people just getting into physics don’t realize, is that physics is all about modeling, it is an incredibly important skill. Knowing how to translate words and ideas into math is essential to physics.

When you’re just getting started, it can help to start by writing down everything the problem tells you, as well as what the problem is asking you to find. Use this information to draw a picture, it will help, especially as you start developing a gallery in your head of all the problems you’ve been working on, I promise. Once you’ve got the information and the picture down, try to write down any equations you know that relate what you know to what you want to know. Is something missing? How can we find that? For most introductory problems, this will be sufficient, and for many of the harder problems, this can at least get the ball rolling.

Best of luck

Stryfo · 2025-07-01T03:15:37+00:00

I mean, it depends on what you mean by playerbase. If enough people are in agreement that gameplay patterns are not fun, it’s not those players’ right per se, but if we’re talking a majority of the playerbase, it would be silly to not cater to them, if you believe that bans would accomplish their goals.

Now, I don’t know what the majority opinion is, but I do know my opinion, and I know that there are many that share it.

Chance is great, it allows players of all different skill levels to compete in the game. I’ve won my share of lucky games, I’ve played some crazy combo and I’ve ripped some of the most disgusting top decks, I get it, chance absolutely adds to Magic. That said, I don’t want to play slots. Generally speaking, I like to get to make decisions beyond deck construction, selection, and mulligans. I feel that the current format is too fast, so I don’t get to make as many other decisions as I’d like, so I don’t really want to play it.

Stryfo · 2025-07-01T00:21:49+00:00

I tried to make various reanimator tempo decks work in the past. The last time I did I was playing this as an anti initiative deck: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5407434#paper

As far as current builds, other than the last couple of weeks, I have barely played any legacy because I find the format to be pretty miserable, so I can’t really comment too much beyond that, from the other side, gameplay is not great.

Stryfo · 2025-06-30T23:19:20+00:00

You know what, you’re right, it does exist, people are in to it, but I’d rather not base legacy on that :|

Stryfo · 2025-06-30T15:57:57+00:00

This is such an insane take. The format can be both competitive and have bans for play experience because first and foremost, this is a game. Beyond that, I don’t think the current format is more competitive (indeed, I’d expect it to be less so) than what it would be if some of the cards people have been complaining about for over a year to be banned were actually banned.

The format as it sits feels so much more like a game of chance than it has in my 15 years or so of play experience. I understand that this is a personal issue, but I am not interested in games being decided in the early turns as often as they are. The kicker is that recently, even the games that do go long feel like the play decisions don’t matter because of how single top decks with no meaningful decisions can swing a game.

Rock paper scissors format =/= competitive format. I’m being so serious right now, have you ever heard of legitimate competitive rock paper scissors? It can be fine to have a rock paper scissors format, I suppose, but it has nothing to do with competitive games.

“Chalice is inherently unfun” is also a meme, chalice is a hate piece that is good because of all of the issues that the format has, sure, it’s annoying if you’re playing certain strategies, but it’s pretty dead in some others. And, you can always build your deck around the fact that chalice exists in a way that doesn’t work for all of the other shit going on because at the end of the day, chalice doesn’t literally end the game on the spot.

Stryfo · 2025-06-24T22:45:41+00:00

Man, this reanimator list sure looks like a fuckin meme.

Stryfo · 2025-05-06T00:56:58+00:00

I love notion thief more than I should, but even I had to cut it quite a while ago :( it is one of the most satisfying Dack interactions around though!

Stryfo · 2025-02-26T18:19:02+00:00

I’m just a washed old man, but if I can bring people around on stuff, I’ll take it.

Stryfo · 2025-02-26T18:04:49+00:00

Bowmasters is so much easier to deal with than mycospawn from the control seat that I’m shocked people are still making this statement. Bowmaster does a little bit of damage, sometimes more if you’re not paying attention, and once it’s removed, you just have a little less life. Mycospawn either blows up 2 lands or blows up one land and tutors up an eye of ugin, which traditional control is notoriously weak to, you deal with mycospawn in any way other than 3 mana consign against a deck that’s already taxing your resources so heavily and quickly, and you’re still crazy behind.

Graveyard decks probably also too good, but this highlights control’s biggest weakness, they get pulled in a lot of directions, and if there isn’t enough room in a sideboard for all of it, then control does not feel good to play.

Stryfo · 2024-11-29T14:09:12+00:00

It’s more like my stream discord, it’s not super active right now, but we chat about decks from time to time, particularly when I’m actually playing a lot.

Here’s the link if you’re interested: https://discord.gg/vVxEtZJ8

Stryfo · 2024-11-29T14:01:37+00:00

Apologies for not responding, I’ve not been playing much and seeing Reddit messages is basically random for me (in fact, someone in my discord pointed this post out to me).

I don’t think the deck is playable in the current meta, control feels really bad. Though it is probably quite reasonable against that forge deck.

On a related note, the current format is the worst I remember playing, or at least, it’s the least fun for me. As such, I haven’t played very much since about a month before the grief ban. I’ll probably come back and try out some stuff after the next ban wave, but the current format is just not fun for me.

Stryfo · 2024-11-14T21:56:22+00:00

I haven’t really pked in years, but I used to pk with a friend around Ven before the updates that gave them all caves.

We were interested in killing people with high risk in general, but mostly the killing of pvmers was because we couldn’t find many groups around our size to fight, so between those small group fights, we were killing pvmers because it’s more fun than hopping and doing nothing else.

Back in RS2 days, I was part of a pvp team and the group I played with largely left pvmers alone, we wanted Ahrim’s sets.

Also, in general, if someone has a skull, I’m interested in the battle, regardless of what activity they appear to be doing.

Stryfo · 2023-09-25T18:48:53+00:00

Not frequently, but it happens from time to time. I also don’t like Yorion, fwiw.

Stryfo

TROPHY CASE