I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
I also have to point out that the most expensive space telescope (JWST) cost about $500 million/year. We spent 1000x that much on AI development in 2025.
Data collection is essential for discovery...and it's remarkably cheap compared to many other things we do routinely.
I've also seen smart people tie themselves into knots trying to defend the original claim.
"He just means big science is expensive."
"He just means that AI can help with data analysis."
"He just means that string theory is a dead end."
But that is not the claim, and the efforts to justify it only make the argument even stranger.
@coreyspowell and even if AI happens to come up with some new theory (!) someone needs to test it, and that takes time and real experiments and observations.
And coming up with a new theory is based on what we have already observed and tested. At any point in time, gobbling up that real data and finding a new pattern may, possibly, be quicker with AI. But you still have to have that data. And frankly it is not simply about finding a new pattern. It needs actual insight.
Corey S Powell
RevK 