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238

AI Breakthrough Predicts and Prevents Plasma Disruptions in Fusion Reactors, Scientists Claims (www.vice.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Scientists at Princeton University have developed an AI model that can predict and prevent plasma instabilities, a major hurdle in achieving practical fusion energy.

Key points:

Problem: Plasma escaping containment in donut-shaped tokamak reactors disrupts fusion reactions and damages equipment.
Solution: AI model predicts instabilities 300 milliseconds before they happen, allowing for adjustments to keep plasma contained.
Significance: This is the first time AI has been used to proactively prevent tearing instabilities in fusion experiments.
Future: Researchers hope to refine the model for other reactors and optimize fusion reactions.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 9 months ago (3 children)

AI is just the name that journalists use for all algorithms these days.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Although it's been used for a fairly wide array of algorithms for decades. Everything from alpha-beta tree search to k-nearest-neighbors to decision forests to neural nets are considered AI.

Edit: The paper is called

Avoiding fusion plasma tearing instability with deep reinforcement learning

Reinforcement learning and deep neural nets are buzzwordy these days, but neural nets have been an AI thing for decades and decades.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

So are you saying this is an algorithm?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Just a big pile of if statements.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

"ifs are a code smell"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

For real. I've started to replace "AI" with "program" or "software" in my head every time I read a headline.