Recent research shows that babies use their early helplessness to develop cognitive models, similar to AI pre-training, challenging older theories about infant brain immaturity and potentially inspiring advancements in AI technology.A new study suggests that babies’ brains are not as immature as previously believed; instead, they utilize their period of postnatal ‘helplessness’ to develop foundational models similar to those that drive generative Artificial Intelligence.
The research team comprised Prof. Cusack, who measures the development of the infant brain and mind using neuroimaging; Prof. Christine Charvet, Auburn University, USA, who compares brain development across, that equates corresponding ages across species to establish that human brains are more mature than many other species at birth,” says Prof. Charvet.
In the past, AI models were directly trained on tasks for which they were needed for example a self-driving car was trained to recognize what they see on a road. But now models are initially pre-trained to see patterns within vast quantities of data, without performing any task of importance. The resulting foundation model is subsequently used to learn specific tasks. It has been found this ultimately leads to quicker learning of new tasks and better performance.