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The Thermodynamics of Intelligence

The Thermodynamics of Intelligence
Statistical mechanics did not inspire neural networks. It is describing them. Same equations, same phase transitions, one Nobel Prize late. Nine parts…
 • Hugo
Free Energy: The Physics Beneath AI
Intelligence may not require knowing where to go. It may require only a landscape in which some directions are downhill.
 • Hugo
The Thermodynamics of Intelligence, Part 9: What Thinking Actually Costs
Eight times, this series asked whether a physics concept and an AI phenomenon were the same thing. This time: what does either one cost, physically…
 • Hugo
The Thermodynamics of Intelligence, Part 8: The Emergent Ability That Might Not Be There
Every critical point so far was calculated, seen, or proven absent. This one has an award-winning paper arguing it never existed. The dispute still has…
 • Hugo
The Thermodynamics of Intelligence, Part 7: The Stall Every Neural Network Hits First
Every neural network stalls the same way before it breaks through. In 1995 two physicists solved the equations for why. Those equations still explain…
 • Hugo
The Thermodynamics of Intelligence, Part 6: An Exact Mapping, Approximately
Physics owns a machine for deciding which scale to look at. In 2014 two physicists said deep networks run the same one, and put the word exact in the…
 • Hugo
The Thermodynamics of Intelligence, Part 5: How to Miss a Phase Transition
The first four critical points here were calculated. This one was seen, in a curve nobody had reason to keep watching. Then the arguing began over…
 • Hugo
The Thermodynamics of Intelligence, Part 4: The Theory That Cannot Fail
The brain minimizes free energy. Same quantity as the Boltzmann machine, same equation as a magnet. Then the three questions come back empty, and the…
 • Hugo
The Thermodynamics of Intelligence, Part 3: The Speed Limit Nobody Obeys
Cool metal slowly and atoms find order. Cool it fast and the flaws freeze in. There is a theorem for how slow is slow enough. Nobody can afford it. The…
 • Hugo
The Thermodynamics of Intelligence, Part 2: Memories That Never Happened
Store a memory and you carve a valley. Recall is rolling downhill. But the landscape invents valleys nobody dug, and heat turns out to be the cure…
 • Hugo
The Thermodynamics of Intelligence, Part 1: A Magnet That Remembers
In 2024 the physics Nobel went to two AI researchers. Physicists asked how this counts. The answer is five pages long, published in 1982. Not a…
 • Hugo
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