Latest news with #NatureHumanBehaviour
AllAfrica
5 days ago
- AllAfrica
AI is no longer artificial
For centuries, the mirror has served a simple purpose: to reflect our image. It shows our form, lets us adjust our appearance, and studies our expressions. But it doesn't know us. A mirror is a passive, optical simulation – a reflection of form, not essence. You can stare into it for hours, yet it will never reveal your thoughts or identity. It's a surface, not substance. The more we gaze into mirrors, the more we focus on appearance. In that way, mirrors become feedback loops. First we create the reflection, then the reflection begins to shape us. Today's mirrors are digital. Social media are reflecting us, but in a curated, filtered and performative way. They don't just show who we are – they show who we want to be, or pretend to be. As philosopher Jean Baudrillard warned in his theory of hyperreality, representations become more real than reality itself. We no longer live in the moment; we live for how the moment looks on screen. In 2023, a Nature Human Behaviour study revealed that 64% of users felt 'more like themselves online' than in real life. That's not a connection – it's self -distortion. Social media are not a window to the world; They are a mirror of desire. Social media don't merely reflect life. They replace it with a version that's more symmetrical, more colorful, more shareable than reality. It's a simulated reality. Humans love simulated reality – whether it's the mirror, social media or video games – more than reality. Simulation doesn't have to be digital. It can be psychological or cultural – any representation that imitates reality but isn't reality itself. If mirrors simulate our appearance and social media simulates our persona, then artificial intelligence now simulates our consciousness. Tools like ChatGPT don't invent humanity – they re-present it. Trained on billions of words, they echo our thoughts, emotions, contradictions and dreams. When we speak to AI, we are not talking to something alien – we're speaking to a refined version of ourselves. AI becomes not just a mirror, but a hall of mirrors. We've crossed into an era where the tools we've created don't just assist us – they reflect us back. AI finishes our sentences, answers our questions and creates our art. But as its responses grow more fluid, the line between mimicry and sentience begins to blur. As technology evolves, we're losing our compass. Intelligence, once the proudest marker of human uniqueness, no longer belongs to us alone. We have no definitive metric to separate simulated thought from real consciousness. The Turing Test has been outpaced. As AI models mimic human reasoning, debate philosophy, write poetry and simulate empathy, we're left with a haunting question: What if mimicry becomes indistinguishable from sentience or from reality ? Today AI doesn't just solve tasks – it simulates emotional presence. Tools now generate voice, video and conversation with uncanny intimacy. In a poignant example, a woman used ChatGPT to simulate conversations with her deceased mother to find solace. Replika, a chatbot app, has users reporting romantic connections with their avatars. Sixty percent of paying users claim to be in love with theirs. Unlike humans, AI doesn't judge, tire or leave. It delivers perfect emotional labor – a task no human has ever managed to sustain. But as it simulates love, grief and care, we must ask: When does imitation become reality? Or when do people start loving imitation more than reality. This is the defining crisis of our century: What makes us human if we are no longer the only beings who reflect, remember or respond with empathy? In capitalism, we're valued for productivity. AI will surpass us. In relationships, humans are flawed. AI is endlessly understanding. In knowledge, we're fragmented. AI is total. Ironically, AI might push us to rediscover what makes us human. That's not perfection but fragility. Our flaws and limitations may be our last claim to uniqueness. But even that is being challenged. We are entering an ethical reckoning. What if, in the near future, the elderly find solace in digital companions rather than the presence of family? What if the children form attachments to voices that were never born – like Alexa or Google Home? If an AI listens better than a friend, what is the meaning of friendship? We are heading into an era where a line must be drawn between artificial intelligence and artificial sentience because, if we don't, the real danger won't be that machines become human – but that we forget what being human even means.
The Independent
17-06-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Ice Age cave find upends what we know about Australia's first people
rare artefacts dating to the last ice age at a cave in Australia 's Blue Mountains, providing definitive proof that the rugged ranges were once occupied by the continent's first people. Researchers working with First Nations community members found that Dargan Shelter, a frigid site at an elevation of about 1073m (3280 ft) west of Sydney, was occupied by early humans 20,000 years ago. The findings, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, provide the oldest evidence yet of occupation above 700 metres in Australia. It upends previous beliefs that the Blue Mountain ranges were too difficult to occupy during the last ice age, and also hints that such icy landscapes may not have been a hurdle for early human migration. The research also raises further questions about the ingenuity of early indigenous Australians that enabled them to adapt to these inhospitable conditions. During the last Ice Age, frigid conditions extended to the upper reaches of the Blue Mountains above 600 metres with temperatures at least 8.2 degrees cooler than today, and vegetation much sparser than modern times. Little firewood would have been available in this region during the ice age, and water sources would have been frozen through winter, scientists say. 'Until now, we thought the Australian high country was too difficult to occupy during the last ice age,' said archaeologist Wayne Brennan from the University of Sydney. 'Yet, despite the harsh conditions, our research demonstrates people were moving in and through this high elevation landscape, which is approximately 400m above the treeline,' Dr Brennan said. In the latest excavations, archaeologists unearthed nearly 700 artefacts at the cave site dating to the last Ice Age, including features of a hearth. Many of these were prehistoric tools likely used by Australia's first people for cutting or scraping, researchers say. 'It was the excellent state of preservation that enabled us to construct such a robust chronology for Dargan Cave spanning the last 20,000 years,' said Philip Piper, another author of the study. Most of the claystone tools unearthed were made locally, but one seems to have come from the Jenolan Caves area, which is about 50km (31 miles) away from the Dargan Shelter site, indicating ancient people were travelling from the north and south. While the Blue Mountains range is a UNESCO World Heritage-listed site recognised for its plant and animal diversity, there have been no safeguards to protect the cultural heritage of its indigenous people, researchers say. 'Our people have walked, lived and thrived in the Blue Mountains for thousands of years and we knew the cave was there,' said study author and Dharug woman Leanne Watson Redpath. 'It is not only a tangible connection to our ancestors who used it as a meeting place for sharing, storytelling and survival, but is a part of our cultural identity. We need to respect and protect our heritage for the benefit of all Australians,' she said. Scientists are still unsure which early people accessed the mountains during the last Ice Age. They suspect multiple indigenous groups may have been connected to the region. 'We hope that by combining our traditional knowledge with scientific research, we can protect these invaluable storehouses of our history for generations to come,' Dr Brennan said.
DW
11-06-2025
- Science
- DW
AI art can't match human creativity, yet — researchers – DW – 06/11/2025
Generative AI models are bad at representing things that require human senses, like smell and touch. Their creativity is 'hollow and shallow,' say experts. Anyone can sit down with an artificial intelligence (AI) program, such as ChatGPT, to write a poem, a children's story, or a screenplay. It's uncanny: the results can seem quite "human" at first glance. But don't expect anything with much depth or sensory "richness", as researchers explain in a new study. They found that the Large Language Modes (LLMs) that currently power Generative AI tools are unable to represent the concept of a flower in the same way that humans do. In fact, the researchers suggest that LLMs aren't very good at representing any 'thing' that has a sensory or motor component — because they lack a body and any organic human experience. "A large language model can't smell a rose, touch the petals of a daisy or walk through a field of wildflowers. Without those sensory and motor experiences, it can't truly represent what a flower is in all its richness. The same is true of some other human concepts," said Qihui Xu, lead author of the study at Ohio State University, US. The study suggests that AI's poor ability to represent sensory concepts like flowers might also explain why they lack human-style creativity. "AI doesn't have rich sensory experiences, which is why AI frequently produces things that satisfy a kind of minimal definition of creativity, but it's hollow and shallow," said Mark Runco, a cognitive scientist at Southern Oregon University, US, who was not involved in the study. The study was published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour , June 4, 2025. What are the challenges to book preservation? To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video AI poor at representing sensory concepts The more scientists probe the inner workings of AI models, the more they are finding just how different their 'thinking' is compared to that of humans. Some say AIs are so different that they are more like alien forms of intelligence. Yet objectively testing the conceptual understanding of AI is tricky. If computer scientists open up a LLM and look inside, they won't necessarily understand what the millions of numbers changing every second really mean. Xu and colleagues aimed to test how well LLMs can 'understand' things based on sensory characteristics. They did this by testing how well LLMs represent words with complex sensory meanings, measuring factors, such as how emotionally arousing a thing is or whether you can mentally visualize a thing, and movement or action-based representations. For example, they analyzed the extent to which humans experience flowers by smelling, or experience them using actions from the torso, such as reaching out to touch a petal. These ideas are easy for us to grasp, since we have intimate knowledge of our noses and bodies, but it's harder for LLMs, which lack a body. Overall, LLMs represent words well — but those words lack any connection to the senses or motor actions that we experience or feel as humans. But when it comes to words that have connections to things we see, taste or interact with using our body, that's where AI fails to convincingly capture human concepts. What's meant by 'AI art is hollow' AI creates representations of concepts and words by analyzing patterns from a dataset that is used to train it. This idea underlies every algorithm or task, from writing a poem, to predicting whether an image of a face is you or your neighbor. Most LLMs are trained on text data scraped from the internet, but some LLMs are also trained on visual learning, from still-images and videos. Xu and colleagues found that LLMs with visual learning exhibited some similarity with human representations in visual-related dimensions. Those LLMs beat other LLMs trained just on text. But this test was limited to visual learning — it excluded other human sensations, like touch or hearing. This suggests that the more sensory information an AI model receives as training data, the better it can represent sensory aspects. AI's impact on the working world To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video AI keeps learning and improving The authors noted that LLMs are continually improving and said it was likely that AI will get better at capturing human concepts in the future. Xu said that when future LLMs are augmented with sensor data and robotics, they may be able to actively make inferences about and act upon the physical world. But independent experts DW spoke to suggested the future of sensory AI remained unclear. "It's possible an AI trained on multisensory information could deal with multimodal sensory aspects without any problem," said Mirco Musolesi, a computer scientist at University College London, UK, who was not involved in the study. However, Runco said even with more advanced sensory capabilities, AI will still understand things like flowers completely differently to humans. Our human experience and memory are tightly linked with our senses — it's a brain-body interaction that stretches beyond the moment. The smell of a rose or the silky feel of its petals, for example, can trigger joyous memories of your childhood or lustful excitement in adulthood. AI programs do not have a body, memories or a 'self'. They lack the ability to experience the world or interact with it as animals and human-animals do — which, said Runco, means "the creative output of AI will still be hollow and shallow." Edited by: Zulfikar Abbany
Time of India
11-06-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Study finds genes influencing one's sensitivity to environment, symptoms of mental disorders likely to express
New Delhi, A study has uncovered genes that govern how sensitive one is about their environment, levels of which can influence symptoms they present of mental disorders. An international team of researchers, led by those at King's College London, UK, analysed nearly 10,900 pairs of identical twins from 11 studies and examined how changes in sensitivity to environment can influence one's chances of presenting symptoms of ADHD, autism, anxiety and depression, psychosis and neuroticism. Findings, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, show that genes related to molecules important for neurodevelopment, immune function and the central nervous system were related with autistic traits. Genes that influence how one reacts to stress were found to be linked with depressive symptoms. Further, genes involved in regulating catecholamines -- hormones, such as dopamine and adrenaline, involved in responding to stress -- were linked to psychotic-like experiences, the researchers found. "Differences in individuals' sensitivity to life experiences can explain why the same negative or positive experiences may have varying effects on people's mental health, depending on their genetic make-up," first author Elham Assary, a postdoctoral researcher at King's College London, said. An interaction between one's genes and their environment is considered to make up a diverse range of traits across species. The 'nature vs nurture' debate in psychology is concerned about how much of an individual's characteristics is due to genetics (nature), and how much due to environment (nurture). "Our findings suggest that specific genetic variants influence how environmental exposures impact psychiatric and neurodevelopmental symptoms," Assary said. Studies often look at identical twins, as they carry almost entirely identical genetic material -- this would mean that differences in their characteristics would be more likely due to the environment they experience. "Some people are more sensitive to their circumstances, and this can be positive in good circumstances but can make life more challenging than for others in stressful circumstances," senior author Thalia Eley, professor of developmental behavioural genetics at King's College London, UK, said. However, discerning which genes are involved in determining what characteristics and symptoms one expresses has proved challenging, especially for complex psychological traits, the team said. "We identified 13 genome-wide significant associations, including genes related to stress reactivity for depression, growth factor-related genes for autistic traits and catecholamine uptake-related genes for psychotic-like experiences," the authors wrote. Results from the study "provide an important step forward in disentangling gene-environment interactions for psychiatric traits and provide a framework for similar investigations in other traits," senior author Patricia Munroe, professor of molecular medicine at Queen Mary University of London, UK, said.
Euronews
10-06-2025
- Health
- Euronews
Twins study shows how genetic response to environment impacts health
It's an age-old question: is nature or nurture more responsible for how we turn out in life? Scientists have long believed that some combination of our genes and environment – our diets, lifestyles, traumatic events, and much more – shape our personalities and health outcomes. Now, new research indicates there's another step involved, with our genes affecting how we respond to our life experiences – and these pathways making it more or less likely that we will grapple with a slew of psychological conditions. The study, which was published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, analysed data from nearly 22,000 identical twins across 11 studies, in what researchers said was the largest study yet to map the entire DNA of identical twins. They identified genetic-environmental links to conditions as wide-ranging as anxiety, depression, psychotic experiences, neuroticism, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). 'These findings confirm that genes influence psychiatric and neurodevelopmental traits partly through affecting how people respond to the world around them,' Thalia Eley, one of the study's authors and a professor of developmental behavioural genetics at King's College London, said in a statement. The researchers looked at identical twins because they have almost the exact same genetic code, making it possible to zero in on how people's DNA and lived experiences interact – and what that overlap means for our well-being. For example, if identical twins had genes that made them more sensitive to environmental factors, they were expected to be different from each other because they each had unique life experiences that set them on different paths, mental health-wise. But if identical twins had genes that made them less sensitive to outside factors, they were expected to have more similar traits to one another. Knowing this, the researchers identified particular genes that seemed to carry more weight than others. Growth-related genes were associated with autistic traits, the study found, while genes related to stress reactivity were tied to depression and genes that help regulate stress hormones were tied to psychotic-like experiences. The researchers said the findings could be used to better understand how the DNA-lifestyle nexus shapes people's health outcomes, and what that means for people struggling with serious mental health or neurological issues. 'Some people are more sensitive to their circumstances, and this can be positive in good circumstances, but can make life more challenging than for others in stressful circumstances,' Eley said.
