Future of Science & Technology Q&A (December 1, 2023)

The Stephen Wolfram Podcast

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the future of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Questions include: Which do you think is more likely, teleportation or time travel? - I'm curious about accurately reconstructing the past using present data. Imagine a pool table where we can trace ball trajectories backward from current positions and vectors. If this works for a simple model, could we apply it to reality, tracing back to the very first moments of the universe? This could be like a "playback" of history. Do you think it's feasible with sufficient data, advanced computation and AI assistance, or are there insurmountable challenges? What ethical considerations might this raise? - We are definitely generating a germ factory on our keyboards and mice. We should use it. - "There is one more way to get from one place to another." This is what gravitational lensing is when light travels on multiple paths to us, right? - At this level, wouldn't there be some ambiguity, e.g. many different possible motions of molecules would produce the same pattern on sand? - Weren't there recently studies from MIT that were able to make hash collisions on purpose? - ​Will a web browser ever have a native runtime for a language other than JavaScript, e.g. Python, Wolfram Language, etc.? - It worries me, letting a user space code run into kernel space directly. - Is LLM the wrong direction for AI?