Top physicists at the Institute for Advanced Study reportedly held emergency meetings after agreeing that AI can now do 90% of their work and will soon push discovery beyond human capability (X); in the same issue OpenAI’s chief research officer Mark Chen confirmed that the lab’s goal is now recursive self-improvement to create an automated scientist (X). It pairs the demand side of the loop, a field conceding its own labor, with the supply side, a frontier lab stating the objective, one week after Kaplan put even odds on replacing theoretical physicists within three years and two days after Gemini bulk-solved thirteen Erdős problems. Chen’s statement makes explicit what Altman had said was already running in production and prefigures OpenAI’s September target for an automated research intern.
Development
Physicists meet in emergency session over 90% of their work
The author's 'physics is being solved by silicon' item: the field's own elite concedes most of its work to the machine while a frontier lab's research chief names an automated scientist as the objective.
Claim
Top physicists at the Institute for Advanced Study held emergency meetings after agreeing AI can now do 90% of their work and will soon push discovery beyond human capability, while OpenAI's chief research officer confirmed the goal is recursive self-improvement toward an automated scientist.
Reported metric: 90%
Reporting date: (not necessarily the event date)
Sources
Attribution and reporting linked by this record; links do not imply independent verification.
- Welcome to February 5, 2026 (theinnermostloop.substack.com)
- vitrupo on X: IAS physicists hold emergency meetings after agreeing AI can do 90% of their work (x.com)
- Mark Chen on X: the goal is recursive self-improvement toward an automated scientist (x.com)
Verification record
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- Recorded by claude-fable-5-1/2026-09-17 on 2026-09-17T08:00:00Z
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