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It was sometime back that I realized what we are synthesizing here (possibly) is an archive for an expert system. Put the Physics Stack Exchange together with an AI machine and you have a super-physicist. The same might be said of other Stack areas, knowledge bases.

What will the stack eventually become? Are there longer term goals than to just ask/answer questions?

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    $\begingroup$ Related: meta.physics.stackexchange.com/q/1096/2451 , meta.physics.stackexchange.com/q/5173/2451 $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic Mod
    Commented Oct 26, 2015 at 23:01
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    $\begingroup$ world domination! Just like Skynet:P $\endgroup$
    – user36790
    Commented Oct 28, 2015 at 2:17
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    $\begingroup$ "Put the Physics Stack Exchange together with an AI machine and you have a super-physicist." Really? I'm not convinced. $\endgroup$
    – Alfred Centauri
    Commented Oct 31, 2015 at 1:32
  • $\begingroup$ Like what @Dirk Bruere said, we already have one from @Qmechanic! :) $\endgroup$
    – Asker123
    Commented Nov 4, 2015 at 2:57
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    $\begingroup$ Some very capable but controversial people have left the site. Personally, I'm more active on SO, and some of my posts are either very controversial or simply not understood, in spite of my efforts to explain. Some people need a thick skin to stay on sites like this, though it is a "society" of sorts. It's kind of boring when I get no comments, even if they're negative. BTW, I got a PhD in AI, and you have more faith in it than I do. It's kinda rested on its laurels the last 2-3 decades, Siri/Google notwithstanding. $\endgroup$
    – Mike Dunlavey
    Commented Nov 4, 2015 at 22:11

4 Answers 4

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Eventually what it will become is a place where anyone who asks any question will be referred to a previous answer before their question is closed down.

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    $\begingroup$ That is an interesting perspective, but it suggests that there will be a point that physics will not have anything new to discover & I'm not quite willing to concede that point. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Commented Oct 27, 2015 at 18:17
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    $\begingroup$ A fool can ask more questions than ten wise men can answer... $\endgroup$
    – Floris
    Commented Oct 27, 2015 at 18:25
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    $\begingroup$ @Dirk Bruere: Ironically, this may happen to this meta post itself. $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic Mod
    Commented Oct 27, 2015 at 18:47
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    $\begingroup$ @Floris Isn't that why they call them fools? (See another question ) $\endgroup$
    – docscience
    Commented Oct 27, 2015 at 21:50
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    $\begingroup$ Seriously I see allot of value in the sense we are collectively building an immense data base. $\endgroup$
    – docscience
    Commented Oct 27, 2015 at 21:54
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    $\begingroup$ Mind you that Stack Exchange has quite a lead on us in the total number of questions asked and they haven't reach that asymptote yet. Could take a while. $\endgroup$
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Mod
    Commented Oct 28, 2015 at 2:59
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    $\begingroup$ Yeah, thought experiment might suggest that. But on stack overflow, we have a question about someone's AJAX request not sending data to PHP script every few hours. So nope, this is not going to happen. $\endgroup$
    – Tomáš Zato
    Commented Oct 31, 2015 at 14:33
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    $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos: Although the cutting edge physics questions are not posed by amateurs but rather people with a stronger background than 99% of the user-base. So the only thing that's left is clarification questions about confusing news-articles about new physics. $\endgroup$
    – Nikolaj-K
    Commented Nov 21, 2015 at 16:55
  • $\begingroup$ I'm dying of laughing after reading this $\endgroup$
    – Brian
    Commented Oct 6, 2020 at 12:43
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Humans will cease to exist within a few generations, they'll be replaced by machines. It's likely that our civilization will give rise to one superintelligence, all knowledge acquired by us will be absorbed by it. Digital records are then more useful than paper records, so the files stored on servers containing the contents of this site may make it into the brains of this superintelligence. A lot of the content will likely be interpreted as examples of how primitive biological beings approach physics problems.

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    $\begingroup$ So then food for the gods $\endgroup$
    – docscience
    Commented Oct 27, 2015 at 21:47
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    $\begingroup$ Is this a joke? $\endgroup$
    – Danu
    Commented Oct 27, 2015 at 22:14
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    $\begingroup$ bbc.com/news/technology-30290540 It's better to just accept the inevitable, work on the basis of realistic assumptions. We are not going to be around for very long, whatever we write here will only be read by humans for a few generations and then it will be accessible for potentially billions of years to machine civilizations. $\endgroup$
    – Count Iblis
    Commented Oct 27, 2015 at 22:49
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    $\begingroup$ Yes, let's all take the opinion of someone who's seen Terminator one too many times. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Commented Oct 27, 2015 at 23:34
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    $\begingroup$ We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. :P $\endgroup$
    – udrv
    Commented Oct 28, 2015 at 6:21
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    $\begingroup$ @Danu I thought the original question is a joke as well. $\endgroup$
    – Tomáš Zato
    Commented Oct 31, 2015 at 14:34
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    $\begingroup$ @innisfree It's either along the lines of what I wrote (a rather optimistic view of the future) or something along these lines. $\endgroup$
    – Count Iblis
    Commented Nov 3, 2015 at 17:29
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    $\begingroup$ @Count Iblis: It seems many think against this. But I agree on your statement. This is not a joke & after all, who saw the future? Just one upvote of mine & I'm really eager to watch when a real Skynet comes & consumes these data to become REAL physicist. $\endgroup$
    – user36790
    Commented Nov 7, 2015 at 11:55
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I disagree with Dirk Bruere. Although I hardly post here, on any site you will have

  • homework with some solution attempts, so probably worth giving a particularized answer. Sending the asker to a different problem/example is not that different from telling him to RTFM. And there's an inexhaustible number of homework problems.

  • tumbleweed questions that usually are too hard to [actually] answer. My SO questions are mostly like that. Well, I get some answers, but it's usually not what I asked... more like extended comments. A small percentage of these will probably get an actual answer over time.

These two issues are actually connected.

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    $\begingroup$ Do notice that we don't allow people to post arbitrary homework problems, and that frames as conceptual question there are simply fewer version and things can be closed as duplicates fairly often. $\endgroup$
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Mod
    Commented Nov 3, 2015 at 20:06
  • $\begingroup$ @dmckee: I don't see how this question is any different from arbitrary HW, to pick an example just from the 1st page. $\endgroup$
    – got trolled too much this week
    Commented Nov 3, 2015 at 20:23
  • $\begingroup$ And even ignoring that, the number of ways someone can misunderstand some formula or proof is probably limitless as well. $\endgroup$
    – got trolled too much this week
    Commented Nov 3, 2015 at 20:27
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    $\begingroup$ HW is assuredly considered off topic here, however the problem we face is that we need 5 members with >3k rep to vote to close and it always seems to be the same ~10 members voting day in & day out. It's an issue of too many crap questions and too few voters. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Commented Nov 4, 2015 at 0:02
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I would love to see this kind of website evolve into a new place where research may be published and reviewed. Voters and answerers would be the referees, and their reputation may indicate the strength of their votes.

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    $\begingroup$ That would be an odd member of the StackExchange family of Q&A sites. And what would be the correct answer to accept anyway? Besides, isn't this what arxiv is for? $\endgroup$
    – MSalters
    Commented Nov 9, 2015 at 10:50
  • $\begingroup$ The last half of the last sentence has been discussed numerous times in different SE sites and is rejected each time in favor of the democratic system, as opposed to the plutarchy system you are describing. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Commented Nov 9, 2015 at 12:46

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