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    [ This sounds like something straight out of The Expanse. ]   
      
   'An extension of a scientist's brain': Researchers explore AI to augment   
   inspiration and imagination to revolutionize science   
      
   Date:   
   Sat, 25 Jan 2025 14:03:00 +0000   
      
   Description:   
   The exocortex will provide a bridge between the human mind and a network of    
   AI agents.   
      
   FULL STORY   
   ======================================================================   
      
    - Scientists at US Department of Energy explore concept of an "Exocortex"   
    - It is pitched as an extension of the scientist's brain with a word-based   
   HCI   
    - It is uncharted territory as one member of the team puts it   
      
   AI is already a big part of our lives, shaping healthcare, transportation,   
   education, customer service, retail, and creative industries, to give just a   
   few examples.    
      
   Researchers at the US Department of Energys Brookhaven National Laboratory    
   are currently exploring the concept of a science "exocortex," the integration   
   of artificial intelligence with human cognitive capabilities, viewed as an   
   extension of the scientist's brain.    
      
   The idea is to increase the cognitive abilities of researchers by providing a   
   bridge between the human mind and a network of AI agents.   
      
   It will require a community   
      
   Kevin Yager, Electronic Nanomaterials Group leader at the Center for   
   Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), detailed the idea in Digital Discovery . The   
   proposed exocortex is certainly ambitious in its scope, aiming to streamline   
   specific research tasks through a swarm of inter-communicating agents.    
      
   Each AI agent would specialize in particular tasks - be it handling    
   scientific literature, orchestrating experiments, or data synthesis - and   
   their collective behavior could offer a synergy that significantly extends    
   the cognitive reach of human scientists.    
      
   The exocortex could also aid scientific inspiration and imagination by    
   leaning into hallucinations.    
      
   As Yager explains, "Although hallucinations are generally undesirable, their   
   existence is intrinsic, and there is a tradeoff between hallucinations and   
   creativity. In other words, some amount of hallucination is desirable to   
   enhance creativity and communication. More broadly, evaluations of LLM   
   creativity suggest that they can generate outputs that are non-trivially    
   novel and useful to humans."    
      
   This vision is not without its challenges, naturally enough, and will require   
   further advancements in AI, particularly in terms of reliability and   
   efficiency across highly technical domains.    
      
   Yager says, Research is required to determine how best to exploit LLMs to   
   generate agentic modules that can perform tasks autonomously (over short   
   timescales) by iterating on a problem.    
      
   The development of a seamless word-based human-computer interface (HCI) will   
   also be needed to make these interactions feel like natural extensions of the   
   human thought process.    
      
   While still in a speculative stage, the concept of an exocortex feels like a   
   natural evolution for AI.    
      
   As Yager says, Interaction between a swarm of AI agents - each responsible    
   for intelligently mediating access to a suite of research capabilities - and    
   a human researcher should lead to the emergence of enhanced human   
   capabilities. By expanding the researcher's intelligence into the exocortex,   
   the researcher can accomplish more, as they are able to intuitively and   
   seamlessly weave myriad physical, computational, and cognitive systems into   
   their intellectual work.    
      
   In an article on Tech Xplore , written by some of his colleagues, Yager    
   issues a call to arms, stating: "We're entering unchartered territory with   
   tremendous potential benefits for nanoscience and beyond. But no one person   
   can do it alone. We need a community."   
      
   ======================================================================   
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.techradar.com/pro/an-extension-of-a-scientists-brain-researchers-e   
   xplore-ai-to-augment-inspiration-and-imagination-to-revolutionize-science   
      
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