Why Is Naveen Rao Excited About AI?
Naveen Rao is personally pumped that AI is a tool and capability for asking much bigger questions about the universe. Many things in science stay unexplained because the problems were unapproachable: not enough humans could think about a problem and actually make progress. The surface area of problems people can go after and start to solve is increasing, and he finds that extremely exciting.
The idea that AI is going to kill all humans is the stupidest worldview he has ever heard, and he is completely tired of it. AI is what lets humans start to crack bigger problems. Exploring more of the universe depends on understanding deeper parts of physics. Wormholes and similar ideas have been theoretical constructs. People can now use AI to ask whether a physical phenomenon is real and whether someone can build something that exploits it. In the past there were not enough humans capable of approaching the questions. Moving science and human understanding forward makes him feel like a kid. A world of wonder sat out there that people could not even think about, after they were browbeaten into treating their own capabilities as the limit. Now the whole world is open.
