How explorations in physics have informed artificial intelligence

Abstract

The relationship between physics and artificial intelligence (AI) is dynamic and interconnected. As physics informs AI development, AI, in turn, now serves as a critical tool across various branches of physics. From the quantum world to the macroscopic behaviours of the universe, physicists have developed theories and conducted experiments that have profoundly shaped modern civilisation. Physics experiments, due to the size and complexity of their data, have accelerated the development of artificial intelligence into a technology that is rapidly transforming the way people communicate, learn, create, and make decisions. Introduction: Foundations. Discoveries in physics have transformed our understanding of nature and enabled many of the technologies that define contemporary life, including GPS technology, the World Wide Web, and touch screens. At the same time, AI has brought us large language models, image generation systems, self-driving vehicles, and personalised recommendation systems, which are rapidly becoming part of everyday life. When people think of AI and more specifically, neural networks, they often picture the neurons and synapses that make up the biological networks of the human brain. These structures provide an intuitive connection between biological and artificial intelligence and have strongly influenced how AI is commonly understood. However, this biological analogy tells only part of the story. An often-overlooked fact is that modern AI has also been deeply influenced by physics. Many of the mathematical foundations, computational methods, and theoretical ideas that underpin contemporary machine learning (ML) originated in problems first studied by physicists. The relationship between physics and AI has become increasingly intertwined. Advances in AI and ML have contributed to major scientific discoveries, including the experimental discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.1,2