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Scientists succeed in ‘mind-reading’ using ChatGPT

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With the help of artificial intelligence (AI) powered ChatGPT, neuroscientists believe they have found a way to translate the activity of the brain into words, a major discovery that can help patients with conditions like “locked-in” syndrome, stroke, etc that render them unable to communicate.

The scientists from the University of Texas in Austin used the groundbreaking OpenAI’s human-like chatbot showing its applications in the healthcare sector as AI is on the way to modernisation and advancement, eventually touching every part of our daily lives.

Alexander Huth, assistant professor of neuroscience and computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, told CNN, “so, we don’t like to use the term mind reading. We think it conjures up things that we’re actually not capable of.”

Professor Huth participated in research and spent spending 20 hours in the confines of an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging)  machine with audio clips he was listening to. Meanwhile, the machine captured detailed snaps of his brain activity.

OpenAIs ChatGPT logo is seen in this illustration. — Reuters/File
OpenAI’s ChatGPT logo is seen in this illustration. — Reuters/File

The AI system analysed his brain activity and the audio he was listening leading the technology to eventually foretell the words he was hearing just by watching his brain.

The technology researchers used was OpenAI’s chatGPT-1 model — which developed a huge database of books and websites.

The researchers found that the AI system accurately predicted what participants were listening to and watching by observing mental activity.

Despite its initial stages, the technology shows promise. It also underlines that AI cannot easily read our minds.

“The real potential application of this is in helping people who are unable to communicate,” Huth explained.

The researchers believed that this technology could be used in the future by people with “locked-in” syndrome, stroke and others whose brains are working but they could not speak.

“Ours is the first demonstration that we can get this level of accuracy without brain surgery. So we think that this is kind of step one along this road to actually helping people who are unable to speak without them needing to get neurosurgery,” he said.

A screen can be seen showing the OpenAI logo with ChatGPT visible behind the phone. — AFP/File
A screen can be seen showing the OpenAI logo with ChatGPT visible behind the phone. — AFP/File

Though the results of the technology are promising, it also raised concerns about how it would be used in controversial areas.

The researchers noted that brain scans “need to occur in an fMRI machine, the AI technology needs to be trained on an individual’s brain for many hours, and subjects need to give their consent.”

If someone resists listening to audio and does not think as per the requirement, it simply won’t work.

Jerry Tang, the lead author of a paper explained: “We think that everyone’s brain data should be kept private. Our brains are kind of one of the final frontiers of our privacy.”

Tang explained that “obviously there are concerns that brain decoding technology could be used in dangerous ways.”

Huth stated: “What we can get is the big ideas that you’re thinking about. The story that somebody is telling you, if you’re trying to tell a story inside your head, we can kind of get at that as well.”

Voicing concerns, Tang told CNN that lawmakers need to take “mental privacy” seriously to protect “brain data” — our thoughts — two of the more dystopian terms I’ve heard in the era of AI.

“It’s important not to get a false sense of security and think that things will be this way forever,” Tang warned.

“Technology can improve and that could change how well we can decode and change whether decoders require a person’s cooperation.”

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Google claims that its new chip has solved a quantum computing problem.

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Google announced on Monday that it had solved a complex quantum computing problem in five minutes using a new generation of chips, which would have taken a classical computer a longer time than the universe’s history.

Alphabet’s Google is pursuing quantum computing, like other corporate behemoths like Microsoft and International Business Machines (IBM), because it promises to achieve computer speeds that are significantly quicker than those of the most advanced systems available now. While there are currently no commercial applications for the arithmetic problem solved by the company’s Santa Barbara, California, quantum lab, Google expects that quantum computers can eventually solve issues in artificial intelligence, medicine, and battery chemistry that are beyond the capabilities of current computers.

A new chip named Willow, which has 105 “qubits,” the fundamental units of quantum computers, produced the findings that were made public on Monday. Despite their speed, qubits are prone to errors because they can be jostled by subatomic particles or events in space.

A semiconductor may become no more advanced than a standard computer chip when more qubits are crammed onto it. Scientists have been working on quantum error correction since the 1990s.

Google said in an article published Monday in the journal Nature that it has discovered a method to connect the qubits of the Willow chip in such a way that error rates decrease with increasing qubit count. Additionally, the business claims that it can instantly fix mistakes, which is a crucial step in making its quantum machines workable.

In an interview, Hartmut Neven, the head of Google’s Quantum AI division, stated, “We are past the break-even point.”

Using differing technical assumptions about a classical system, IBM contested Google’s claim in 2019 that its quantum processor solved a problem that would take a conventional computer 10,000 years, claiming that the problem could be solved in two and a half days.

Google says it considered some of those worries in its most recent projections in a blog post on Monday. Google claimed that a traditional computer would still require a billion years to achieve the same outcomes as its newest chip, even in the most optimistic circumstances.

In an interview, Anthony Megrant, principal architect for Google Quantum AI, stated that while some of Google’s competitors are manufacturing circuits with more qubits than Google, Google is concentrated on creating the most dependable qubits possible.

Prior to creating its own specialized fabrication facility to create its Willow chips, Google used a shared facility at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The new facility, according to Megrant, would increase the speed at which Google can produce future chips, which are kept cold in enormous freezers known as cryostats for experimental purposes.

“If we have a good idea, we want somebody on the team to be able to… get that into the clean room and into one of these cryostats as fast as possible, so we can get lots of cycles of learning,” Megrant explained.

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In its beta edition, WhatsApp offers reminder reminders for unseen status updates.

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For overlooked status changes, Meta’s well-known social messaging app WhatsApp has introduced a new reminder notification option.

Previously in testing, this functionality is now available to Android users who are engaged in WhatsApp’s beta program. WhatsApp for Android’s 2.24.25.29 beta version has the feature, which notifies users of unseen status updates and unread messages.

Users can access the “Settings” menu, select “Notifications,” and then go to the “Reminders” option to enable or disable the feature.

An internal mechanism is used to choose which contacts would receive these notifications, according to WABetaInfo. Contacts with whom users communicate the most are given priority by this algorithm. The data is not saved on the server or in backups, so if the user reinstalls the application, the algorithm is reset.

Some people think that the function would be more useful if it allowed users to personalise notifications for specific contacts, even if it is intended to alert users of updates from their most-interacted contacts.

Joining the beta program offers early access to this update for individuals who are keen to test it out before the stable release.

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For research purposes, OpenAI introduces a $200 ChatGPT membership.

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On Thursday, OpenAI released a $200/month version of its well-liked chatbot ChatGPT, which can be utilized for research and engineering disciplines as the AI company seeks to increase the number of industry uses for its technology.

The ChatGPT Pro tier will supplement OpenAI’s current ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Enterprise subscriptions. It demonstrates the company’s aspirations to expand the commercialization of its technology, which precipitated the AI boom.

The most cutting-edge OpenAI capabilities, such as its new reasoning model o1, o1 small, GPT-4o, and enhanced voice, will be available to users of ChatGPT Pro without limits, according to the business.

Additionally, the subscription includes O1 Pro Mode, a version that solves more complicated queries by using more processing power.

The o1 pro mode outperforms the o1 and o1 preview versions on machine learning benchmarks in math, science, and coding, according to OpenAI.

Three months after stepping down as president, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman announced on X Tuesday that he has rejoined the artificial intelligence startup.

A representative for OpenAI verified Brockman’s return.

Bloomberg News, the original source of the story, stated that Brockman has been collaborating with CEO Sam Altman to design a new position that would allow him to concentrate on important technological issues.

On X, he wrote, “I’ve had the longest vacation of my life.” returning to @OpenAI’s construction.

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