Hi, thank you for coming to this meeting. I have a Patreon and I mentioned that because some of the tiers suggest topics and vote on topics. And I worry that some of the voters, high voters, thought that they were voting for the topic Genesis mission with reference to Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. — I shall leave you as you left me. And I'm so sorry, but in November of 2025, Donald Trump, President of the United States, signed an executive order launching something called the Genesis Mission. So that's this. In every age, humanity invents new ways to see further. The telescope let us glimpse the stars. The microscope revealed the worlds within us. For centuries, thinkers like Linets, Shannon, and Turing dreamed of making all knowledge computable. But today, knowledge grows faster than our ability to understand it. Trillions of data points, a universe of information. So, I struggle when talking about AI to just not repeat this whole hourong video. So, we're going to try to speedrun it. Okay. Scientists use novel and interesting machine learning tools. I realize I have lost this battle forever, but these machine learning tools are not artificial intelligence. And yet, we're all just deciding to call it artificial intelligence. Does AI exist? No, but like [ __ ] me, right? Anytime you have a whole bunch of data, it makes sense to develop some sort of computer algorithm to sort through that data, reduce that data, maybe apply like analysis tools to that data because you can't look at all of it. There's too much data. This style of data reduction of data analysis has been going on for like two or three decades, but it's really accelerated in recent years. A classic example is astronomy. You have your telescope, you point it at like I don't know half a million galaxies. You cannot physically with your eyes catalog and analyze half a million images. And they're not just images. They're usually like data cubes. So you'll have like a photo in whatever wavelength you're looking at, X-ray, radio, whatever. You would have maybe spectra information. You would maybe have velocity information and you just can't you can't that's too much data. You take a small subset of the data and you analyze it the classical way and then you train an algorithm on that small subset and then you like you expand you close the model once you have it trained the way you want it and you just throw it at the big giant hunk of data and like it works beautifully. AI tools, that's what we're calling them, I guess, are really novel and interesting and useful in science. But when you hear scientists use AI, it's not AI, but also I would hate for you to associate that with an LLM, which is also a machine learning tool, but like scientists are not shoving their data into chat GPT and being like analyze this data. I mean, some of them are. That's pretty [ __ ] embarrassing. Anyway, I do have this worry. I have this worry that someone hears, "Scientists use AI tools all the time and they're great. " And they interpret that as like, "Oh, if I want to be a scientist, I should invest in using an LLM and learning how to be a prompt engineer. " No, please don't. Stop using those. Those are algorithms that are trained to just keep your eyeballs on and also flatter your every move and then kind of tell you to kill yourself and others. Like, that's what they're good at. You don't need to do that. That's not what machine learning in science is. Anyway, I do think the ubiquity of AI tools in science is like a thing that will happen. It's the one good thing we will get out of this AI bubble. There's just so much data. Of course, we will use this very good tool to analyze the data. Anyway, I like science. I like AI tools in science. I think the people who know how to use them and understand the field of research they're in and use them appropriately can use them to do better, stronger, better, faster science, right? So, this should be a good thing, right? No, it's not. I'm sorry. This is a video about how the thing is bad.
So the Genesis mission is presented by the White House press office and also a lot of media and science institution as like this big giant beautiful project that will transform science in America. Not only like just shoving AI into every single piece of it, but also restructuring the way science is performed in America, who gets to do it, where it gets done, who gets funding for it, etc. the media and a lot of scientific institutions and honestly like a lot of scientists have looked at this genesis mission and been like, "Wow, oh my god, you guys. Finally, science policy. This is the day that Trump became president. Wow, the adults are in charge. Science is definitely back on the menu, boys. " And I just Let me ask you in the form of a rhetorical question. If the Trump regime was interested in funding science and seeing Americans benefit from the results of those science, would they have cut NSF funding, cut NASA funding, cut NIH funding, illegally arrest, detain, and deport people who are working in science labs across the United States, fire the entire NSF board, nominate a Fox News contributor to be the surgeon general, and then nominate an antivaxer without a medical license, and then try again with a separate different Fox News presenter instead of, you know, a respected surgeon. or doctor. This whole thing, there's this whole thing. Does this look like a man who understands science? There's more. And like we could just go on all day and all day based on what we just covered. Do you trust anything science related in any way at all coming out of this administration? I mean, no. Like, I don't really think we even need to go further. We don't need to dedicate any time to this at all. Like, obviously, this is some sort of scam. The question is, what sort of scam is it? But, you know, for documentation purposes, let's go further. I really don't think you need to do more than watch the two-minute ad on this website to realize these people have no understanding of science or science's role in technological innovation to even suspect that they know what they're doing. So, here we have a list of 26 national priorities that have been identified. And that's just 26 things, you guys. Step one, identify the priorities. Step two, solve solutions. Like, they did it. They're already halfway done. I'm just kidding. I don't think identifying 26 national priorities is the problem. The issue is, of course, that this whole document was written by some garbage LLM chat box, and I spent way more time reading it than anyone involved in the creation of this document spent writing it. Like, it's just a nonsense list. Why not do some examples? Page 17. Predicting US water for energy. Water availability is essential for expanding production and utilization of energy as well as the nation's health and security. However, there are fundamental scientific gaps in our understanding of terrestrial and atmospheric systems that limit our ability to predict water resources, especially on the time scale of weeks to years. And like this is true, sure, but do you think the Trump administration actually cares about climate modeling? because they cut Noah's funding. They canled their climate change research and called it woke garbage. Like the whole thing got doed. Like if they actually cared about AI modeling of climate and climate disasters, especially for national security, why would they specifically fire all the people who, you know, were using AI to model climate and climate disasters for national security? Like this whole team already existed and they crushed it. They destroyed it. They killed it. They ended it. So why are they pretending that suddenly they care about this? And honestly, this is how every single one of these 26 things reads. Accelerating delivery of fusion energy. And it's just like challenge fusion is hard. If we had it, that'd be good. AI solution, digital twins, data, harness, framework, predictive AI, justification, fusion would be good. Impact, I know someone watching this is going to be like, Angela is so stupid. She's just mocking Fusion. She doesn't understand how good it would be and how good the energy would be. And like, yeah, I do. Your malicious optimism will kill us all. To look at this and be like, "Wow, they're going to do fusion and they're going to deliver it via the grid is idiotic. " That's not what this is. Fusion as a viable energy resource is not on the horizon. And what they are suggesting in this document is that they need scientists to develop AI tools to make a plan on how to deliver fusion energy via the existing electrical grid. That is that makes no sense. That is not a thing we can do. It would be like if the US government sent out a call for proposals on building a docking station for the moon base. We don't have a moon base. It's a little premature to get the captains of industry involved. You know, it doesn't make sense to call for a proposal on acceleration of fusion energy delivery when we do not have fusion energy to deliver. It's nonsense. It is an economically unusable form of energy at the moment. Why would we focus on delivery of this unusable thing? It makes so no sense. Speaking of delivery, have I mentioned the timelines of these proposals? Wait, PS, would a regime actually interested in delivering energy to their constituents in like a cheap, safe, easy manner, have cut all of the research that goes into renewable energy? Would they have destroyed all the renewable energy subsidies that had been put in place by the previous administration, had been lowering the cost of energy across the nation? Would they have just canceled that? Would they have started a senseless war in Iran, which not only causing massive deaths that are now on all of our conscious as Americans, but also raising the price of gas to like $6 a gallon? Would they have done that? I'm supposed to believe that this administration cares about energy? Sure. Anyway, have I mentioned the timelines of these proposals?
So, Argon's a national lab in Illinois. If you look at the website, they're celebrating 80 years, but that little hyphen makes it look like Argon died. Like, it's over. Argon has closed. It lasted 80 years. And like, well, look at this. Look at this page. So, this is a press release. I guess it's like an advertisement on how Argon will contribute to the Genesis mission by developing teams and then they just have this list like it's just a list describing a very huge problem saying as if by magic Argon's team will AI it will save billions like that this whole list is just that accelerating scientific discovery through AIdriven code development. This model team will create an AIdriven code-development ecosystem to adapt and optimize flagship DOE applications, shortening the time from scientific concept to validated simulation. We will develop a thing that shortens the time scale. Wow. Who is this for? Like is this for a lay audience? Because like you're not describing what you're actually going to do. Scientists will read that and realize it says absolutely nothing. It's embarrassing that this is on your web page. I wonder who wrote it. Like who wrote this and slapped this up? Who is it for? What is the intended audience of just a list of the magic you're going to do with the AI Genesis mission? Critical minerals and materials to unlock supply. This model team will help secure the domestic supply chain of critical minerals and materials by revolutionizing their discovery, extraction, and processing using an AIdriven engine that acts as a strategic guide for the entire supply chain. The effort will produce a dynamic digital map of the process from mining to market. Like, where do you get that data set? How do you have a data set that shows you where minerals yet undiscovered in American soil are? Like what do you mean? Like how are you going to go about doing this? How do you get that information from an AI? If you don't have the input data, you can't just magically develop an AI to solve it. Like what's what what's the action you are going to take to do this? What is this? Again, who is the audience for this? Like mineral guys, like big mineral fans. They're going to be like, "Whoa, guys. Argon says they're going to use AI to find every mineral in America. " They're going to do that. Prometheus. I bet that's a really stupid acronym for something. That's a long That's too long to be an acronym. I know you guys have fun. Physicists love to do an acronym. You follow your heart. Whatever. A revolution in design and operation of nuclear power plant. This model team will revolutionize nuclear fision energy by using AI to design, manufacture, and operate reactors with minimal intervention in a firstofits-kind public private partnership. The effort will deliver a digital platform for quickly deploying advanced nuclear systems at scale, saving billions per gigawatt, providing reliable power, and establishing US leadership in the next generation of energy. Okay, two things. One, if this administration actually cared about delivering energy to its constituents, would it invest money in infrastructure in securing and rebuilding the failing power grid that causes like hundreds of Americans to die each year whenever there's like a big storm or something? Or AI power, which makes more sense. Anyway, I really have to question the phrasing of AI will manufacture nuclear reactors. What do you think that word means? AI doesn't have hands. What who wrote this? Like what do you mean AI will manufacture nuclear reactors? Why is this on your website as a capability? like as a thing that you are saying Argon can do. It can use AI to manufacture nuclear reactors to manufacture. I'm sure Argon National Lab has some sort of marketing or like press department with like three people and one of them told their chat box to write this and they just slapped it on the website and no one has ever looked at it before. I just who wrote this? Who approved it? Like why? What is the intended audience? Like who tasked someone with writing this? Like what is this for? Because I mean it's just that it kind of seems like nonsense. It's just it's literally like we took the 26 things and our team will do magic and save billions. Like that's how these all read. Just like replace AI with magic. And it's like well how exactly are you going to do that? And why are you putting it up in this format? Like just as a sentence we will manufacture nuclear reactor power plants with AI. What does that mean? Like I guess if you want to be super generous, maybe they're saying that they will create an AI model that is trained on like existing nuclear power plants and they will provide it all the data from those and maybe they will run some numerical simulations and the AI will come up with a new power plant design and then of course structural engineers and nuclear engineers will look at the plans and do some work on the feasibility. But like how is the AI going to manufacture these plants? I mean, I guess you could have a chatbox AI agent act as a secretary and that AI agent could like arrange a time when the contractors could show up. But AI doesn't have hands. It can't manufacture anything. Is having an AI agent scheduling contractors what you think people are reading into when you say we have an AI that will manufacture nuclear fision reactors? Because that's not what I think you're trying to convey. It kind of feels like a lie. Hang on. Angela is not suggesting that Argon National Lab is lying about their capabilities. Angela is just confused by what's on this page. So, it feels like it's lying. And it does feel a little bit like lying, unless of course you're incredibly generous in the way you interpret each sentence. But saying AI to save billions seems like a pretty tractable statement that you could perhaps investigate in like three or four years to see if that factually happened. I just it feels like lies. That doesn't mean that it is. America's AI revolution transforms scientific discovery at the speed of light. This model team will speed breakthroughs in micro electronics, medicine, advanced manufacturing, and energy security by transforming the world's top scientific facilities into intotelligent self-driving engines of discovery. You will do that. You will. You are saying that at the speed of light factually you will you Argon National Lab will deliver breakthroughs in micro electronics medicine and advanced manufacturing at the speed of light like that's something you say you will do you will be doing that is what you are going to do so if someone were to check in like seven years we could see those at the speed of light breakthroughs like that's what you're suggesting I it's just that like because like maybe it feels like super hyperbolic like as if as a scientific institution you've just decided to say whatever get some funding and tide yourself over until a more scientifically literate regime is in charge and you can go back to doing science because it kind of feels like that like a little bit that's how it reads to me personally and in doing this you're just destroying your scientific credibility you know I mean at the speed of light okay let's compare Argon's statements on the Genesis mission and their role in it to Arnold's you know. Oh, I'm so worried a baby physicist is going to watch me say Ornal and think it's actually pronounced that way. It's Oakidge National Lab and they always put O R NL. Um, but people just call it Oakidge. I think it's funny to say oral. Research highlights. Explore how ONL is applying its unique strengths as part of the Genesis mission to address critical national challenges across energy security and advanced science. Through the integration of ONL's computing facilities, data, and experimental capabilities, the laboratory is accelerating discovery and real world impact. Okay, that seems like a sentence that's true. That seems like they're not saving billions and revolutionizing science. They're helping with the Genesis mission. That seems like a normal thing to say. And then if you look at their little graphic, AIdriven research promises to accelerate scientific productivity. It sure does. Let's read. So it says, "Generate hypotheses, design experiments, conduct experiments across labs, analyze results in real time with AI, theory, simulation. " You see how they did that there? AI is not a magic wizard that's solving all of Oakidge's problems. No, no. It's one of the many tools they use to approach big scientific problems. I just This is so much better. We have to be kind. to be fair. Let's click dive deeper, right, to check it out. So, this one says real-time AI based water intelligence for US energy systems. So, they're saying they would get a global data set of real-time water information and they would write an AI algorithm that studies how that will flow. Okay, so your input is water data and then they will write that algorithm to work on the DOE's computers as a real time AI interpreter of what the weather is going to do or how water is going to flow on the earth and then the output will be given in real time. So they are saying hey we have a data set and we can get that data set in real time. We will write an algorithm to work with that specific data set. We will give it to the DOE on their computers and they can get real-time predictions out of it. That just seems like a very achievable goal. It seems like a scientific solution to a problem. It doesn't sound like we will revolutionize all of medicine at the speed of light. Right. Anyway, I wanted to make fun of the text on Oregon National Labs website so much that I kind of glossed over a really important point. The Trump regime is using the Genesis mission to redistribute already allocated funds that are supposed to go towards science and saying, "Well, now you have to do it this way. We've taken it away from the NSF. NIS. Now it has to go through us and you have to do your AI component. "