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- AI-Cooperation, Gemini Tries Physics, the Fermi Paradox, and Sagittarius A*
AI-Cooperation, Gemini Tries Physics, the Fermi Paradox, and Sagittarius A*
This week’s science bits from SWTG
Marcus Gee-Lim
March 11, 2026
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AI Agents Can Solve Human Cooperation Problems
Social scientists have found that artificial intelligence could help solve the “tragedy of the commons,” a long-standing problem in human social interactions. The tragedy of the commons is a game theoretical problem which occurs when individuals benefit from not contributing to shared resources, even though they would collectively benefit if everyone contributed.
The researchers used a computer simulation to test how the emergent properties of human self-interest can be altered by AI agents. They tested three possible rules: forcing AI to always cooperate, letting players control AI behaviour, and making AI agents copy the behaviour of the human player they interact with. The first two approaches did not change human behaviour. But when AI agents mirrored a player’s action, cooperation became an advantage, effectively removing the dilemma. The authors argue that AI systems designed to reciprocate human behaviour could help stabilise cooperation in shared-resource problems. Paper here.
This week’s episode of Science News is about black holes and dark matter. Using our observations and predictions based off of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, physicists are pretty sure that there’s a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. But according to a new paper, that prediction might be incorrect – instead, physicists claim that there’s actually a dense core of dark matter at the center of the galaxy instead. Let’s see if that makes sense, and what it might mean for physics.
Google Tries To Catch Up With OpenAI on Physics
A scientist from Google research teamed up with two physicists to coax Gemini Deep Think into solving a theoretical physics problem. For this, they combined Gemini with an automated search and feedback algorithm and derived some properties of gravitational wave emission from cosmic strings. It’s a rather useless result because we have zero evidence that cosmic strings exist, so it fits right in with the current research in the foundations of physics. This comes briefly after OpenAI announced that GPT-Pro succeeded in deriving a new formula for gluon-scattering in the standard model – not a groundbreaking result, but at least we know that gluons exist. OpenAI 1: Google 0. Paper here.
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Alien Civilizations Lose Interest In Space-Travel After 5000 Years, Study Suggest
The new metalens. Credits: Menon Lab
A group of astrophysicists have put forward a new analysis of the Fermi paradox by turning the usual reasoning around. Instead of estimating how many technological civilisations should exist, they asked what the absence of detected signals implies about how long such civilisations remain detectable. Using current estimates for factors such as the number of habitable planets in the Milky Way, the analysis suggests that technological civilizations broadcast for a maximum of about 5,000 years, after which they go silent.
Just why that might happen, the maths can’t tell. It might be because technologically advanced societies collapse due to external pressures, self-inflicted disasters, or because they simply lose interest in space exploration. The authors stress that this is not a prediction for the lifetime of advanced civilization, but it clearly isn’t good news either. Personally, I think the reason we haven’t heard of aliens is that we have not yet developed the technology to receive their signals. Paper here.
