I agree that the potential impact of ML on the theoretical side is very exciting. I think there’s a lot of bridging to be done between the most advanced mathematics and the most advanced physics that could lead to new insight, but it’s a hard problem for humans to tackle since we have very few people who are deeply proficient in both—although it is becoming more common. I’m thinking something like GPT-3 trained on literature in both fields could be the kind of thing we want, but like you I still doubt that a DL system is likely to come up with any real insight. I’d like to be proven wrong, though.