(Press-News.org) In a perspective, Athanassios S. Fokas considers a timely question: whether artificial intelligence (AI) can reach and then surpass the level of human thought. Typically, researchers have sought to measure the ability of computer models to accomplish complex goals, such as winning the game of Go or carrying on a conversation that seems human enough to fool an interlocutor. According to Fokas, this approach has a key methodological limitation. Any AI would have to be tested on every single conceivable human goal before anyone could claim that the program was thinking as well as a human. Alternative methodologies are therefore needed. In addition, the “complex goal” focus does not capture features of human thought, such as emotion, subjective experience, or understanding. Furthermore, AI is are not truly creative: AI cannot make connections between widely disparate topics, using methods such as metaphor and imagination, to arrive at novel results that were never explicit goals. AI models are often conceptualized as artificial neural networks, but human thinking is not limited to the neurons; thinking involves the entire body, and many types of brain cells, such as glia cells, that are not neurons. Fokas argues that computations reflect a small part of conscious thinking and conscious thought itself is just one part of human cognition. An immense amount of unconscious work goes on behind the scenes. Fokas concludes that AI is a long way from surpassing humans in thought.
END
Can AI think like a human?
2023-12-19
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
AI in medical research: promise and challenges
2023-12-19
In an editorial, Monica M. Bertagnolli assesses the promise of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to study and improve health. The editorial was written by Dr. Bertagnolli in her capacity as director of the National Cancer Institute. AI/ML offer powerful new tools to analyze highly complex datasets, and researchers across biomedicine are taking advantage. However, Dr. Bertagnolli argues that human judgment is still required. Humans must select and develop the right computational models and ensure that the data used to train ...
First comprehensive medical guideline on management of pouchitis released
2023-12-19
Bethesda, MD (Dec. 19, 2023) — The American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) has released the first comprehensive evidence-based guideline on the management of pouchitis, the most common complication people with ulcerative colitis experience following surgery to remove their colon.
Between 150,000 and 300,000 people with ulcerative colitis in the U.S. live with a surgically created internal reservoir or “pouch” created from their small intestine as an alternate way to store and pass ...
A neuromuscular model for drug development
2023-12-19
Scientists have so far identified around 800 different neuromuscular diseases. These conditions are caused by problems in the way muscle cells, motor neurons and peripheral cells interact. These disorders, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and spinal muscular atrophy, lead to muscle weakness, paralysis, and in some cases death.
“These diseases are highly complex, and the causes of the dysfunction can vary widely,” says Dr. Mina Gouti, head of the Stem Cell Modeling of Development and Disease Lab at the Max Delbrück Center. The problem might lie with the neurons, the muscle cells or the connections between the two. ...
Chilean researchers pledge for transformative change to tackle climate action
2023-12-19
Addressing climate change has become a central issue in Chile’s public policy. As part of that debate, Dr. Maisa Rojas, researcher in Atmospheric Physics, who currently serves as Chilean Minister for Environment and Marco Billi of the Centre for Climate and Resilience Research, Universidad de Chile, propose a new model of governance at the country level to facilitate the changes needed. The proposal – written before Dr. Rojas’ appointment to the Chilean government – is published in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters.
The model proposed places climate action ...
A new inactive form of p38a protein discovered
2023-12-19
p38a protein, which is associated with cancer and other diseases, adopts a previously unknown structure regulated by cellular redox conditions.
The finding may have implications when designing new drugs to block it.
The work developed by IRB Barcelona, in collaboration with the University of Barcelona and the company Nostrum Biodiscovery, has been published in the journal Nature Communications.
Barcelona, 19 December 2023 - p38a protein, a key enzyme in the regulation of various cellular functions, plays a crucial ...
Childhood trauma increases risk of chronic pain in adulthood, research to-date highlights
2023-12-19
Physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, or neglect, either alone or combined with other types of childhood trauma, increases the risk of chronic pain and related disability in adulthood, according to new research.
These new findings underscore the urgency of addressing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) – potentially traumatic events that occur before 18 years of age – and taking steps to mitigate their long-term impact on people’s health.
The study ...
Pandas active posters on social media
2023-12-19
Pandas, long portrayed as solitary beasts, do hang with family and friends – and they’re big users of social media. Scent-marking trees serve as a panda version of Facebook.
An article in the international journal Ursus paints a new lifestyle picture of the beloved bears in China’s Wolong Nature Reserve, a life that’s shielded from human eyes because they’re shy, rare, and live in densely forested, remote areas. No one really knows how pandas hang, but a new study indicates pandas are around others ...
Air pollutants commonly found indoors could have an impact on creativity, NTU Singapore scientists find
2023-12-19
Air quality in the office may affect our level of creativity at work, scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have found.
Working with the global air filter manufacturer Camfil on a shared research project, the NTU Singapore scientists found in a study that high levels of volatile organic compounds – gases released from products such as detergents, pesticides, perfumes, aerosol sprays and paint – affected the study participants’ creativity when they were asked to build 3D models with LEGO bricks.
Using a statistical analysis, the NTU team estimated that reducing total ...
Lexical simplification via single-word generation
2023-12-19
Lexical simplification (LS) aims to simplify a sentence by replacing complex words with simpler words without changing the meaning of the sentence，which can facilitate comprehension of the text for people with non-native speakers and children. Traditional LS methods utilize linguistic databases or word embedding models to extract synonyms or high-similar words for the complex word, and then sort them based on their appropriateness in context.
Recently, BERT-based LS methods entirely or partially mask ...
Single-celled protists in the guts of animals thrive without the ‘powerhouse of the cell’
2023-12-19
Almost all eukaryotic organisms, from plants and animals to fungi, can’t survive without mitochondria – the “powerhouses of the cell,” which generate chemical energy using oxygen. However, a new study by Lukáš Novák and Vladimír Hampl of Charles University, published in the journal PLOS Genetics, finds that multiple members of the oxymonads, a group of single-celled protists that live inside the guts of termites and other animals, have evolved to live quite happily without them.
Many groups of protists have evolved simplified mitochondria, but for a long time, scientists ...