Every particle accelerator that has been built has paid for itself in research value. There’s basically nothing that comes out of AI research except the need for a bigger model.
The comparison is poor. Particle accelerators are science, LLMs do not produce science.
That’s not to say that we couldn’t build LLMS that would be useful for scientific purposes but we’re not. That is not the function or the goal of the people building these things.
TL;DR - Many times the cost of the LHC and unlike the LHC, the gains are likely to be incremental instead of revolutionary. The same funding could do much more good elsewhere.
To your point, agreed that even small, incremental gains for science are more valuable than what we are likely to get from AI.
Sure, but the waste of AI is so much worse while providing close to no benefits at all (or probably even damage society as a whole).
Just to put this in perspective: OpenAI alone had a $40 Billion funding round in March this year. That is enough to build that huge particle accelerator and run it for 20 years. OpenAI burned that money in 6 months (they needed another $40 Billion in funding in August) and all they have to show for it is GPT 5 which is just more of the same.
Sure other Science Projects could probably do a lot more with the 40 Billion, but the complete waste of resources in the persuit of AI isn’t comparable to ground breaking Physics experiments which actually helps further our understanding of the universe and the very fabric of reality.
I can’t really disagree. Sabine is right that they’re similar situations on the surface in that the both represent large investments for extremely incremental gains, but AI takes the cost and grift to a whole different level while offering gains that have laughable value in comparison to even a single small step forward in our understanding of fundamental physics.
Every particle accelerator that has been built has paid for itself in research value. There’s basically nothing that comes out of AI research except the need for a bigger model.
The comparison is poor. Particle accelerators are science, LLMs do not produce science.
That’s not to say that we couldn’t build LLMS that would be useful for scientific purposes but we’re not. That is not the function or the goal of the people building these things.
Not really my area of expertise, but this article lays out her perspective on this for anyone who isn’t aware: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-world-doesnt-need-a-new-gigantic-particle-collider/
TL;DR - Many times the cost of the LHC and unlike the LHC, the gains are likely to be incremental instead of revolutionary. The same funding could do much more good elsewhere.
To your point, agreed that even small, incremental gains for science are more valuable than what we are likely to get from AI.
Sure, but the waste of AI is so much worse while providing close to no benefits at all (or probably even damage society as a whole).
Just to put this in perspective: OpenAI alone had a $40 Billion funding round in March this year. That is enough to build that huge particle accelerator and run it for 20 years. OpenAI burned that money in 6 months (they needed another $40 Billion in funding in August) and all they have to show for it is GPT 5 which is just more of the same.
Sure other Science Projects could probably do a lot more with the 40 Billion, but the complete waste of resources in the persuit of AI isn’t comparable to ground breaking Physics experiments which actually helps further our understanding of the universe and the very fabric of reality.
I can’t really disagree. Sabine is right that they’re similar situations on the surface in that the both represent large investments for extremely incremental gains, but AI takes the cost and grift to a whole different level while offering gains that have laughable value in comparison to even a single small step forward in our understanding of fundamental physics.