Last year, a group of mathematicians and computer scientists found a way to solve the three-body problem some 100 million times faster than anyone before. The trick, they said, was to let artificial intelligence loose on the challenge. It simply learnt what to do by watching a conventional computer solve the problem many times over.
Other groups have also begun to use AI-inspired techniques to simulate the universe with impressive results. And that raises an interesting question: just how good can AI-driven simulations become?
Now Ian Foster at the University of Chicago and a couple of colleagues have mapped out the future of AI-driven simulation in a white paper for the Computing Research Association based in Washington DC. They argue that AI-driven simulations are set to have a dramatic impact on the way we predict the future, almost like having a new kind of crystal ball.
