Zahavy, Tom (2026) LLMs can't jump. [Preprint]
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Abstract
How do we fundamentally discover new things? In a letter to Maurice Solovine, Albert Einstein conceptualized discovery as a cyclical process involving an intuitive 'jump' from sensory experience to axioms, followed by logical deduction. While Generative AI has mastered Induction (statistical pattern matching) and is rapidly conquering Deduction (formal proof), we argue it lacks the mechanism for Abduction—the generation of novel explanatory hypotheses. Using Einstein’s formulation of General Relativity as a computational case study, we demonstrate that the prevailing theory of "creativity as data compression" (induction) fails to account for discoveries where observational data is scarce. This position paper argues that while a modern Large Language Model could plausibly execute the deductive phase of proving theorems from established premises, it is structurally incapable of the abductive 'Jump' required to formulate those premises. We identify the translation of simulation into formal axioms as the critical bottleneck in artificial scientific invention, and propose that physically consistent, multimodal world models offer the necessary sensory grounding to bridge this divide.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Keywords: | LLMs, AI for science, abduction, simulation, physics | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence General Issues > Philosophers of Science |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Tom Zahavy | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 28 Jan 2026 13:53 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 28 Jan 2026 13:53 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 28024 | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence General Issues > Philosophers of Science |
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| Date: | 27 January 2026 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/28024 |
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