ChatGPT as a "lab rat" for understanding how our brains process language.

I've now read twice through a fascinating PNAS piece by Mitchell Waldrop (Open source, with useful references), and urge MindBlog readers to havve a look. Our brains, as well as all of the GPT (Generative Pretrained Transforer) engines are prediction machines. The following slilghtly edited extract gives context.

...computer simulations of language [are] working in ways that [are] strikingly similar to the left-hemisphere language regions of our brains, using the same computational principles...The reasons for this AI–brain alignment are still up for debate. But its existence is a huge opportunity for neuroscientists struggling to pin down precisely how the brain’s language regions actually work...What’s made this so difficult in the past is that language is a brain function unique to humans. So, unlike their colleagues studying vision or motor control, language researchers have never had animal models that they can slice, probe, and manipulate to tease out all the neural details.

But now that the new AI models have given them the next best thing—an electronic lab rat for language—Fedorenko and many other neuroscientists around the world have eagerly put these models to work. This requires care, if only because the AI–brain alignment doesn’t seem to encompass many cognitive skills other than language...Language is separate in the brain...there are left-side regions of the brain that are always activated by language—and nothing but language..the system responds in the same way to speaking, writing—all the kinds of languages a person knows and speaks, including sign languages. It doesn't espond to things that aren’t language, like logical puzzles, mathematical problems, or music.

People who talk too much

I host a monthly discussion group in Austin TX, The Austin Rainbow Forum, that meets at 2 pm on the first Sunday of every month to consider interesting topics and ideas. On this past May 7, one of our group members led a discussion of "Overtalking" in the modern world, which has got us all spouting opinions, giving advice, and getting ourselves in trouble, according to Dan Lyons in his recent book titled "STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World."  The central ideas in Lyons’ book are summarized in this Time Magazine article. I looked through a reviewers copy of the book I was sent, and suggest that it is worth having a look if you are stimulated by the summary article. The bottom line of the book could be stated as "Shut up and listen instead of talking so much." Lyons offers five nudges: 

-When possible, say nothing

-Master the power of the pause

-Quit social media

-Seek out silence

-Learn how to listen

Lyons is a professional columnist who writes with a very engaging style, even if the level of his coverage is sometimes a bit superficial.  (He quotes a researcher who studied brain activity and '“figured out what causes talkaholism,” ...unfortunately, on doing a quick look up of the work describing the neuronal measurements, I found that there is no there there.)