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Back to 🔬 Synthesis Superintelligence: from Semiconductors to Superconductors — Periodic Labs’ Liam Fedus and Ekin Dogus Cubuk, with Liam Fedus & Ekin Dogus Cubuk.

What Does More Is Different Mean?

Brandon Anderson says Phil Anderson's line, more is different, means someone can know the basic laws and still be wrong about what happens when many parts are put together. The collective behavior is qualitatively different from what the simple laws suggest. The starting laws look simple, so the behavior of many atoms looks like it should be simple too. It is not. Collective behavior is hard to model.

Ekin Dogus Cubuk adds that the behavior is emergent and universal. The same pattern shows up in deep learning, where power laws appear across models and are not understood, yet they resemble the emergence physicists already study. He wants AI applied to materials because theory, computation, and experiment all still have open problems, and a better account of solid-state physics should mean better devices.

Transcript

🔬 Synthesis Superintelligence: from Semiconductors to Superconductors — Periodic Labs’ Liam Fedus and Ekin Dogus Cubuk ·

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

More from this episode

  1. What Is an AI Scientist Lab?Liam Fedus says an AI scientist lab joins AI systems, simulations of the physical world, and a high-throughput experiment, because thinking alone cannot…
  2. Why Can't Reinforcement Learning Wait on a Superconductor?Liam Fedus says reinforcement learning cannot wait on a superconductor, because an update that sits for a couple of days to see whether a run found a…
  3. What Is a Matter Compiler?Liam Fedus says a matter compiler is a lab that takes a requested material and works out a process that can make it, the way a chip fab builds a design it did…
  4. Why Is Materials Data Never Deleted?Ekin Dogus Cubuk says materials data is never deleted because any measurement the team can collect is precious. A person cannot watch every atom.
  5. Why Can't Density Functional Theory Replace Experiments?Ekin Dogus Cubuk says density functional theory cannot replace experiments, even at a hundred million trials. The method usually simulates a perfect crystal.
  6. What Does It Mean for Lab Equipment to Have 140 IQ?Liam Fedus says lab equipment with a 140 IQ is an instrument that runs its own AI, because people checking every sample by eye cannot keep up once the lab…
  7. How Did Periodic Labs Catch a Bad Machine Load?Liam Fedus says Periodic Labs caught a bad machine load because an AI system with a full view of the lab data noticed a pattern no single run made obvious.
  8. What Is a Null Result in Materials?Liam Fedus says a null result in materials can mean the team intended to produce a structure and every measurement says they did not.
  9. Why Is There No Fast Test for Superconductivity?Ekin Dogus Cubuk says there is no fast test for superconductivity.
  10. How Does Periodic Labs Work With Semiconductor Companies?Liam Fedus says Periodic Labs works with semiconductor companies by sending its own engineers and researchers on site, into very private and secure labs, to…
  11. Why Did Alex Müller Win a Nobel Prize for Cuprates?Ekin Dogus Cubuk says Alex Müller won a Nobel Prize because cuprates worked after his nickelates did not.

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