Electromagnetism Secretly Runs the World

Co-written essay with Pratap Ranade, CEO of Arena Physica. Second installment in an unintentional two-part series on non-LLM models that give superhuman abilities in the physical world (companion to the World Models essay with Pim de Witte).

Core Argument

Electromagnetic fields govern far more of the modern economy than most people realize — from chip design and antenna engineering to MRI machines and wireless infrastructure. The bottleneck is that EM simulation is computationally brutal and human intuition for EM behavior is nearly nonexistent. Arena Physica is building AI foundation models that can intuit electromagnetic fields the way world models intuit physics, enabling faster and better design of EM systems. McCormick frames this as another domain where AI-driven simulation (not LLMs) will unlock superhuman capabilities in physical engineering.

RDCO Relevance

• AI beyond LLMs: reinforces the pattern that the most valuable near-term AI applications may be domain-specific physics/simulation models, not general language models
• Chip design implications: EM modeling directly impacts semiconductor lithography and antenna design — adjacent to compute infrastructure themes
• Content strategy: co-authored format signals sponsored/partnership content; Arena Physica later releases Heaviside model (covered in WDoO #188)