The Computer Expert That Just Solved AI’s TOUGHEST Challenge - Rose Yu - #511

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Physics, Natural Sciences, Science

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 Could an AI physicist soon out-innovate Einstein? In this exciting interdisciplinary exploration, UC San Diego’s Rose Yu dismantles the romantic myth of genius-driven science and instead offers a thrilling look at how AI could become not just a computational tool, but a genuine partner in discovery. Rose draws from her pioneering work in traffic forecasting, pandemic modeling, and high-energy physics to show how machine learning is evolving and what it can offer to the scientific community. She walks us through the fascinating ways AI is already helping us rethink what’s possible in science: from generating novel hypotheses to rediscovering fundamental symmetries, and even beating traditional simulations in both speed and precision. With her characteristic clarity, Rose explains how she’s built data-driven surrogates for complex phenomena like the spread of epidemics and the turbulence of fluids. We also tackle some of the more existential questions: Can an AI ever experience “happy thoughts”? How close are we to AGI? And should we be worried about AI replacing us? If science is humanity’s greatest invention, this episode is a fascinating look at its future. — Key Takeaways: 00:00 Intro 01:04 Can an AI physicist out-innovate Einstein? 02:07 Why are GPUs so good for AI? 12:24 Traffic modeling and AI 16:08 Is AI just imitating physics? 24:53 Epidemiology modeling and AI 30:49 Should we be worried about AGI? 34:32 The benefits and dangers of AI 39:53 AI scientists and scientific productivity 42:19 The impact of AI on academia and education 52:34 Outro — Additional resources: 💻 Rose Yu’s website: https://roseyu.com/ — ➡️ Follow me on your fav platforms: ✖️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 🔔 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 📝 Join my mailing list: https://briankeating.com/list ✍️ Check out my blog: https://briankeating.com/cosmic-musings/ 🎙️ Follow my podcast: https://briankeating.com/podcast — Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known. Make sure to follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This professor says AI will never feel shivers down at spline.
0:04.0	AI systems can now automatically discover fundamental symmetries and new physical laws
0:09.0	without being taught the underlying theories.
0:11.0	Essentially, they're finding the hidden mathematical patterns that govern our universe through pure data analysis.
0:17.0	If machines can independently discover new laws like Lorentzian variants from particle physics data,
0:21.9	without knowing Einstein's theories, it suggests AI might find entirely new physical principles
0:26.9	we've never, ever conceived of. Professor Rosu's team trained deep learning models on data
0:33.2	from the Large Hadron Collider that automatically recognized symmetry patterns and high-energy particle interactions. The same symmetries that took Einstein and other geniuses decades to
0:42.2	understand through pure theoretical insight. Professor Rose-U is a computational physicist at
0:46.8	UC San Diego, whose AI models have been deployed by Google Maps for Traffic Predictions, and
0:51.9	ranked number one among 40 national teams for pandemic
0:55.5	forecasting during COVID-19.
0:57.9	Now, let's meet this brilliant natural genius who's taking artificial intelligence to the
1:02.8	next level.
1:03.6	Let's go.
1:04.4	Professor Rose, you, so nice to have you here at UCSD's Arthur C. Clark Center for imagination
1:09.2	into the Impossible Podcast. Great to meet you.
1:11.6	It's a pleasure to be here. You've done so much wonderful stuff and it's wonderful and gratifying to know that you're a
1:16.4	colleague here at UCSD, but you're also getting the recognition that you deserve. I want to start off
1:21.2	with a little bit of a provocative question, which is fascinating to me, which is the following question.
1:26.2	Can an AI physicist ever do what Albert Einstein
1:29.9	did? So famously in 1907, Albert Einstein said he had a dream, a thought experiment, that if he
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