Why do we do Astrophysics?
Nothing we have has the track record that the traditional journals do for long-term dissemination and preservation of knowledge; we don’t know what computing hardware platforms we will have in 15 years, let alone 200, but I can pretty-much guarantee that—if human civilization is still in existence—we will still be able to read Vera Rubin’s papers about the dark matter
more:
On the benefits: Astrophysics-by-LLM is almost as good as human astrophysics in terms of feeding humanity’s love of the subject; it delivers benefits to physics (provided that it is asked to do so); it can be used for military development; it can contribute to remote sensing; it creates new knowledge (provided that the projects it creates are indeed novel). That is, astrophysics-by-LLM delivers many of the benefits that we have identified and associated with the practice of astrophysics.
So is everything fine? No everything is not fine... the practice of astrophysics cannot be learned from reading about astrophysics, and that astrophysics is not about obtaining the answers, but rather the work we do, ourselves, to find those answers. When we offload that work to LLMs, we are no longer doing astrophysics, we are no longer becoming astrophysicists, and, eventually, we no longer are astrophysicists. The let-them-cook policy, in the end, leads to the death of astrophysics, the end of astrophysics at universities, and the end of astrophysics education. Astrophysics would no longer be by humans, and then it would no longer be for humans.
Worth reading in full. The most thoughtful decronstruction of the value of LLMs in a profession I've read yet.