Maintenance of the software that’s used for the hardest physics calculations rests almost entirely with a retiree. The situation reveals the problematic incentive structure of academia. Recently, I ...

is a senior reporter who has covered AI, robotics, and more for eight years at The Verge. DeepMind has created an AI system named AlphaCode that it says “writes computer programs at a competitive ...

Recently, I watched a fellow particle physicist talk about a calculation he had pushed to a new height of precision. His tool? A 1980s-era computer program called FORM. Particle physicists use some of ...