computer science

A team of researchers from the United Kingdom has conducted a phase 2/3 clinical trial in people with a psychotic disorder to study the efficacy of interaction with a digital avatar in alleviating the discomfort generated by hearing voices. After analyzing it in 345 people, they conclude that it can reduce the frequency of occurrence at 16 and 28 weeks. The discomfort provoked is reduced at 16 weeks, but not at 28 weeks. The team publishes the results in the journal Nature Medicine.

Large language models - Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems based on deep learning, such as the generative AI that is ChatGPT - are not as reliable as users expect. This is one of the conclusions of international research published in Nature involving researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia. According to the authors, in comparison with the first models and taking into account certain aspects, reliability has worsened in the most recent models, such as GPT-4 with respect to GPT-3.

In 2022, 62 million tonnes of e-waste were generated worldwide, a figure 82% higher than the 34 million tonnes recorded in 2010, according to a United Nations report. The 2022 figure represents an average of 7.8 kilograms per capita per year worldwide, compared to 19.6 kg in Spain. Only 22.3% of this amount of global e-waste was documented as properly collected and recycled, says the Global E-waste Monitor 2024. 

In a work published in the journal Nature, two researchers from New York University (USA) and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona claim to have demonstrated that an artificial neural network can have systematic generalization capabilities similar to human ones, that is, to learn new concepts and combine them with existing ones. This statement calls into question the 35-year-old idea that neural networks are not viable models of the human mind.

A 'quantum internet' would allow, among other things, the flow of inviolable secret messages. Building such a network involves teleporting information between non-interacting elements of the system, something researchers in the Netherlands claim to have achieved. They publish it in Nature.