Generative AI emulators are increasingly used in scientific domains where we already have strong theory, benchmarks, and physical intuition. This raises a central evaluation and interpretability question: when a foundation-style model can reproduce known continuum dynamics, what internal mechanism supports that behavior, is the internal behaviour consistent with known physics, and how does it relate to where the emulator succeeds or fails?
arXiv:2508. 12448v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: In-context learning (ICL) lets large language models (LLMs) solve new tasks from prompts alone, across an ever-widening range of domains, yet the mechanisms underlying this ability remain poorly understood.
By Yeongwoo Song, Jaeyong Bae, Dong-Kyum Kim, Hawoong Jeong
arXiv:2606. 16013v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Interpreting machine-learning models has attracted increasing attention, particularly in the physical sciences, where one often seeks to understand the underlying mechanisms rather than merely make predictions.
By Anand Sharma, Chen Liu, Daniele Coslovich, Misaki Ozawa
arXiv:2511. 15684v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Foundation models have transformed machine learning for language and vision, but achieving comparable impact in physical simulation remains a challenge.
By Michael McCabe, Payel Mukhopadhyay, Tanya Marwah, Bruno Regaldo-Saint Blancard, Francois Rozet, Cristiana Diaconu, Lucas Meyer, Kaze W. K. Wong, Hadi Sotoudeh, Alberto Bietti, Irina Espejo, Rio Fear, Siavash Golkar, Tom Hehir, Keiya Hirashima, Geraud Krawezik, Francois Lanusse, Rudy Morel, Ruben Ohana, Liam Parker, Mariel Pettee, Jeff Shen, Kyunghyun Cho, Miles Cranmer, Shirley Ho
arXiv:2607. 07127v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Lattice field theory is the workhorse of non-perturbative physics, used to simulate phenomena from the strong nuclear force to critical phenomena in materials.
By Tobias G\"obel, Julian R. Ebelt, Zier Mensch, Mathis Gerdes, Miranda C. N. Cheng
arXiv:2606. 14990v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Sparse autoencoders (SAEs) are standard tools for mechanistic interpretability, but current SAE families are constrained by fixed encoder nonlinearities such as ReLU, JumpReLU, and TopK.
By Naiyu Yin, Yue Yu