Scientists at Princeton University have developed an AI model that can predict and prevent plasma instabilities, a major hurdle in achieving practical fusion energy.
Key points:
- Problem: Plasma escaping containment in donut-shaped tokamak reactors disrupts fusion reactions and damages equipment.
- Solution: AI model predicts instabilities 300 milliseconds before they happen, allowing for adjustments to keep plasma contained.
- Significance: This is the first time AI has been used to proactively prevent tearing instabilities in fusion experiments.
- Future: Researchers hope to refine the model for other reactors and optimize fusion reactions.
I’ve lost track, is AI a good thing today or a bad thing?
AI is just the name that journalists use for all algorithms these days.
Although it’s been used for a fairly wide array of algorithms for decades. Everything from alpha-beta tree search to k-nearest-neighbors to decision forests to neural nets are considered AI.
Edit: The paper is called
Avoiding fusion plasma tearing instability with deep reinforcement learning
Reinforcement learning and deep neural nets are buzzwordy these days, but neural nets have been an AI thing for decades and decades.
For real. I’ve started to replace “AI” with “program” or “software” in my head every time I read a headline.
So are you saying this is an algorithm?
Just a big pile of if statements.
“ifs are a code smell”
And AI is a buzzword that englobes a variety statistical tools. Articles write AI to evoke generative tools in people minds, but very specialized tools are at work here.
deleted by creator
Its a tool, it can be used for both. Just like any other tool, a hammer for example. Excellent killing weapon, but also great for driving nails.
A scalpel can be used to cut or to heal, depending on the skill and intentions of the wielder.
Learned that from Stanislov Grof. He was talking about LSD.
Two nice examples
AI is most likely here to stay, so if you have it do “good” things effectively, then’s it’s a good boi. If it is ineffective or you have it do “bad” things, then it’s a bad boy.
AI is just the tool. Its not good or bad by itself.
Skynet assures you it’s a good thing. Matrix disagrees because it points out that Skynet is closed source and no one knows what it’s really doing.
The funny thing is that “AI” (aka machine learning) even when open source nobody knows what it is doing and why.
Good thing, because one day our robot overlords will read this and I want to be on record having said that.
Yes.
Yesn’t. Maybeer?
“Together with a form of fusion, the machines had all the energy they would ever need”
Or something close to that.
What happens when the AI hallucinates and suddenly needs to Chernobyl the plant to fix a hallucinated emergency?
the reaction stops and there’s no fissile material anywhere.
this is the whole point of fusion. they didn’t have fusion at Chernobyl.
we don’t think you’re some sage for knowing AI can hallucinate, and this isn’t a large language model so hallucinations aren’t even remotely relevant. much like Chernobyl.
Nuclear fusion can’t Chernobyl, even if it were to fuck with the machine and cause it to break, the instant it broke the reaction would stop because it’s not self sustaining without a massive magnetic containment field.
Forgive me if I think any kind of nuclear reaction should not be handled by what we’re calling “AI.” It could hallucinate that it’s winning a game of chess by causing a nuclear blast.
That’s not how AI or nuclear fusion work.
Okay you’re forgiven, doesn’t change that your opinion is flawed however.
Setting aside the matter of “AI”, this is a fusion reactor, not fission, so there’s no scenario in which this can possibly cause an explosion. The absolute worst case scenario is that containment fails and the plasma melts and destroys the electromagnets and superconductors of the containment vessel before dissipating. It would be a very expensive mistake to repair and the reactor would be out of commission until it was fixed, but in terms of danger to anyone not literally standing right next to the reactor there is none. Even someone standing next to the reactor would probably be in more danger from the EM fields of a correctly functioning reactor than they would be from the plasma of a failed one.
Putting aside your lack of knowledge of nuclear energy and AI systems, do you honestly think scientists are stupid enough to give a non-deterministic system complete control over critical systems? No, they are merely taking suggestions from it, with hard limits on what it can do.
Whatever you read to convince you this is what an AI hallucination is needs a better editing pass
Error builds upon error. It’s cursed from the start. When you factor in poisoned data, it never had a chance.
It’s not here yet because we aren’t advanced enough to make it happen. Dress it up in whatever way the owner class can swallow. That’s the truth. Dead on arrival
It seems like you are building on criticisms of LLMs and applying them to something that very different. What poisoned data do you imagine this model having in the future?
That is a criticism of LLMs because new generations are being trained on writing that could be the output of LLMs, which can degrade the model. What suggests to you that this fusion reactor will be using synthetic fusion reactor data to learn when to stop itself?
Me, when I confidently spread misinformation about topics I don’t even have a surface level understanding of.
Do you really think we’re at I, Robot levels of AI right now?
Removed by mod
