Lifeboat Foundation

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory scientists developed an AI algorithm inspired by the genome’s efficiency, achieving remarkable data compression and task performance.

In a sense, each of us begins life ready for action. Many animals perform amazing feats soon after they’re born. Spiders spin webs. Whales swim. But where do these innate abilities come from? Obviously, the brain plays a key role as it contains the trillions of neural connections needed to control complex behaviors.

However, the genome has space for only a small fraction of that information. This paradox has stumped scientists for decades. Now, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professors Anthony Zador and Alexei Koulakov have devised a potential solution using artificial intelligence.

Some researchers propose that advancing AI to the next level will require an internal architecture that more closely mirrors the human mind. Rufin VanRullen joins Brian Greene to discuss early results from one such approach, based on the Global Workspace Theory of consciousness.

This program is part of the Big Ideas series, supported by the John Templeton Foundation.

Continue reading “Can Models of Human Consciousness Enhance AI Capabilities?” »

Anthropic, a leading AI model provider, has proposed a protocol and architecture for providing language models with the necessary context obtained from external systems.

Physicists from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) have developed an innovative computing system using laser beams and everyday display technology, marking a significant leap forward in the quest for more powerful quantum computing solutions.

The breakthrough, achieved by researchers at the university’s Structured Light Lab, offers a simpler and more cost-effective approach to advanced quantum computing by harnessing the unique properties of light. This development could potentially speed up complex calculations in fields such as logistics, finance and artificial intelligence. The research was published in the journal APL Photonics as the editor’s pick.

“Traditional computers work like switchboards, processing information as simple yes or no decisions. Our approach uses laser beams to process multiple possibilities simultaneously, dramatically increasing computing power,” says Dr. Isaac Nape, the Optica Emerging Leader Chair in Optics at Wits.

As a simple illustration, let’s say someone wanted to create a tomato sauce recipe, optimizing vitamin C and using sustainable tomatoes within a certain cost range. Journey Foods then taps into its database to generate an optimal recipe, and will continually push recommendations of top suppliers.

“Essentially, when people go to ChatGPT or something, and they’re asking them, ‘write this paper for me, or give me a social media post, speak to this audience,’ or whatever, right? It’s the same thing with our generative recipe recommendations,” Lynn said.

Except Lynn doesn’t use ChatGPT. Systems such as ChaptGPT gather data from the open internet, but Journey Foods gets its data from research institutions, academic journals, suppliers and manufacturers. Lynn said her business uses a lot of private, hard data that’s unstructured, with her company then giving it structure and doing so globally.

The CEO also talked about how much AI computing power increased in the past 10 years and Nvidia’s single greatest contribution to AI.

Mayo Clinic researchers have developed new artificial intelligence (AI)-based tools to pinpoint specific regions of the brain with seizure hotspots more quickly and accurately in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. Their study, published in Nature Communications Medicine, highlights the potential of AI to revolutionize epilepsy treatment by interpreting brain waves during electrode implantation surgery. This transformative approach could significantly reduce the time patients spend in the hospital, accelerating the identification and removal of seizure-generating brain regions.

“This innovative approach could enable more rapid and accurate identification of seizure-generating areas during stereo-electroencephalography (EEG) implantation surgery, potentially reducing the cost and risks of prolonged monitoring,” says Nuri Ince, Ph.D., senior author of the study and a consultant in the Mayo Clinic Department of Neurologic Surgery.

Drug-resistant epilepsy often requires surgical removal of the seizure-causing brain tissue. A first step in that treatment is typically a surgery that involves implanting electrodes in the brain and monitoring neural activity for several days or weeks to identify the location of the seizures.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to improve the analysis of medical image data. For example, algorithms based on deep learning can determine the location and size of tumors. This is the result of AutoPET, an international competition in medical image analysis, where researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) were ranked fifth.

The seven best autoPET teams report in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence on how algorithms can detect tumor lesions in positron emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT).

Imaging techniques play a key role in the diagnosis of cancer. Precisely determining the location, size, and type of tumor is essential for choosing the right therapy. The most important imaging techniques include positron emission tomography (PET) and computer tomography (CT).