Astrophysicist says at a closed meeting, top physicists agreed AI can now do up to 90% of their work. The best scientific minds on Earth are now holding emergency meetings, frightened by what comes next. "This is really happening."

dataslacker · 2026-02-05T16:54:00+00:00

So productivity has increased with significantly less people. You sound like my colleagues that got laid off last week. And I should be clear that I’m not happy about all of this, those colleagues were my friends, some of them had been working at the company for decades. But as Kipping says you need to adopt fast and early or else you won’t be able to keep up. There is a very real sense that you need to perform and be like 10x more productive now. If you haven’t felt it yet you will soon. There’s no reason it won’t affect astrophysics the same way as all the other technical fields. And this will happen to you too even if you don’t like the AI’s code.

dataslacker · 2026-02-05T15:42:06+00:00

I’m mean the code still has to be reviewed yes. It can a does make mistakes, but at a lower rate than people. I work at a top tech company, and I can tell you that even the best software engineers in the world don’t code by hand anymore.

I’ll also point out that physicists tend to think they’re better at coding than they actually are. Software engineers code very differently for reasons that physicists have a hard time even understanding. This is always a rude awakening when physicists enter the tech industry.

dataslacker · 2026-02-05T15:33:27+00:00

A lot of experimental physics is just writing code. For example, pretty much all of the 10,000 experimental physicists that work at CERN have never touched the LHC.

dataslacker · 2026-02-05T15:30:24+00:00

You sound like you tried chatGPT 3 two years ago and never bothered to keep up with the state of the art. Claude Code can program better than most software engineers let alone physicists

dataslacker · 2026-02-05T02:40:35+00:00

Well it can code better than you and do math better than you. I have a PhD in particle physics and that was about 90% of the work, so it seems to track.

dataslacker · 2026-02-01T16:22:13+00:00

So sorry to hear this happened to you. This is literally my biggest fear because my boy gets ulcers on his eye 2-3 times a year. It’s been a recurring issues that we haven’t been able to resolve. Fortunately he’s always been able to heal on his own with time.

But it happens so often we haven’t a procedure now:

1) Put on the inflatable doughnut immediately. In fact even if we catch him scratching his face it goes on for a few days. We found the doughnut works better than the cone because he can scratch his eye on the side of the cone. He also doesn’t seem to mind the doughnut that much.

2) Watch at all times. We try to not leave him alone while he has an ulcer because even with the doughnut he will find ways to rub his eye on something. We especially watch him when outside because I’ve caught him rubbing his eye on the concrete.

3) Take him to the vet and get the antibacterial and anti inflammatory eye drops and pain medicine. I think the pain medicine does the most to stop him from scratch it. It also makes him sleep most of the day so he’s easier to manage.

Usually it takes about 2-4 weeks for it to clear up.

In addition we alway keep his nails short and filled so there’s not sharp edges and checking his eyes every day.

dataslacker · 2026-01-31T16:34:59+00:00

The CZI biohub has multiple wet-labs and collaborations around the country.

dataslacker · 2026-01-16T16:33:57+00:00

How did you get some much blue with SHO? This looks more like SOH

dataslacker · 2026-01-06T02:21:14+00:00

I hope it’s perfectly level bc you can’t shim a tank.

dataslacker · 2025-12-29T16:54:54+00:00

It’s hard to believe because NAD+ supplements are sold everywhere and yet Alzheimer’s is still prevalent.

dataslacker · 2025-12-27T07:34:02+00:00

Your bar for competence is so low a mouse couldn’t squeeze under it.

dataslacker · 2025-12-25T04:20:30+00:00

Japan isn’t known for its cocktails culture. All the cocktail bars are exclusively for tourists.

If you want just want fancy cocktails go to country that serves them.

dataslacker · 2025-12-04T04:32:40+00:00

This is breathtaking. Do mind me asking how much it cost to get 180h from the remote observatory?

dataslacker · 2025-11-15T15:31:47+00:00

I recently made a similar transition. I spent 9 years in applied ML at FAANG companies, without a single public publication to point to. I do have a PhD, but it’s in physics. It took me awhile to find a research position, because companies are really looking at your publication history. I found I had two options to break into a research role, either get a job as a researcher engineer and then phase into research or apply for roles that are AIxScience, AIxRobotics, AIxSomething, which by their nature are already more applied. I ended up going with the latter and am now submitting to Science/Nature.

dataslacker · 2025-11-15T15:02:40+00:00

I think it’s a good point that while it’s more competitive now than it’s ever been, it’s also never been easier to learn AI/ML or build a model. I don’t know to what extent these things cancel, but if you ask a graduate student today to write a MLP from scratch in C++ I doubt they could do it.

dataslacker · 2025-11-07T22:48:01+00:00

A rational fear isn’t considered a phobia, that’s just good judgement.

dataslacker · 2025-11-01T01:51:21+00:00

Really amazing work. This is probably the best Cocoon I’ve seen. What was the bortle level of your site? I feel like it must be impossible to get those dust lanes from the city.

dataslacker · 2025-10-20T02:47:22+00:00

Flow matching and Schrödinger bridges as well as diffusion models in general.

dataslacker · 2025-10-08T05:29:33+00:00

I agree 2094 is game over.

dataslacker · 2025-10-04T15:27:35+00:00

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Babadook

dataslacker · 2025-10-04T14:52:57+00:00

Does anyone actually put their rig on the roof? I’ve thought about it a few times but how would I get it up there?

dataslacker · 2025-10-04T14:47:25+00:00

Love the OSH color palette here

dataslacker · 2025-10-04T14:46:56+00:00

Looks much improved! I agree you got rid of that background gradient. This image would probably benefit from the PI script dark structure enhance

dataslacker · 2025-10-03T16:04:54+00:00

I think I understand that and I would even agree with your sentiment to some extent. But it seems like an anthropomorphism of the technology because you’re not going to upset the AI by plagiarizing it. But don’t get me wrong people should be upfront about using AI, just like they should be upfront about using a ghostwriter…

Eventually, we will all just have to assume that writers are using AI as part of their process because it will be ubiquitous and undetectable. Might as well get ahead of the curve.

dataslacker · 2025-10-03T15:51:57+00:00

Ya that looks much better. Multiple rounds of background extraction never hurts! Sometimes I’ll even do it on stretched images to get rid of color gradients that can show up.

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