AI models, amazing advances or just digital smoke?

Are artificial neural networks like our brains, or are we talking about apples and oranges?! Long ago, scientists unearthed a little gem called an “artificial neural network,” which is like a Frankenstein monster that learns everything from winning games to predicting which emojis you’ll use in your next message, but the most recent spark, about six years ago. , was the birth of the “transformers”. These aren’t robots in the movies, these are super powerful AI models! As if a superhero and a computer had a baby, think of the famous ChatGPT or the Bard, they are part of the transformers league! But here comes the big question: Can these technological marvels be similar to our brain? Are we in a party of twins separated at birth? 🤔

It’s like transformers are that person who can talk to everyone at once and give super wise answers, while the other neural networks can only chat with the previous words of the conversation. Let’s talk brains and computer chips here! But wait, the problem is that transformers are like those magicians who do amazing tricks, but nobody knows how they do it and in this case, we are not talking about cards up their sleeves, but about the biology that is in the brain. How could we make a biological version of these transformers? That’s where a team from MIT, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, and Harvard Medical School come into the picture. Scientists have come up with an intriguing idea: what if astrocytes, which are like the minions of neurons in your brain, also have a role in this brain party?

Think of astrocytes as “gossipy friends” who are everywhere, watching everything and passing information to each other. Apparently, these non-neural cells may be playing a secret role in how we calculate things in our brains, like when you’re trying to guess the next word in a sentence. It may sound like science fiction, but these guys at MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab and Harvard have crunched numbers and made up equations to back up their theory – it’s like they’re rewriting the script of the movie “Transformers” so that astrocytes are the heroes instead of giant robots.

Now, the team is in a race of sorts to test their theory in real life. It’s not like building a time machine, but imagine if they manage to connect the dots between our heads and artificial super intelligences! So in summary, we’re not just talking about bits and bytes, we’re exploring how our own brain cells might be involved in the AI ​​dance. We’ll have to wait and see how this story unfolds, but in the meantime, stay tuned, because astrocytes could be the next rockstars on the science scene. Are we at the beginning of a collaboration between our brains and machines? Only time will tell, dear explorers of knowledge!