At the end of November 2022, the San Francisco-based company OpenAI launched its prototype of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based chatbot that can answer a wide range of questions in short periods of time. Since then, users worldwide have been testing the chatbot and discussing its possible applications in different fields. ChatGPT is based on a so-called large language model (LLM), a deep learning technique that employs multi-layered neural networks trained on a vast pool of texts. Over time, these models can learn to make predictions about how to compose sentences and answer specific language queries. GPT-3, the model underpinning ChatGPT, is one of the most powerful LLMs worldwide, as it includes more than 175 billion parameters and can tackle a wide range of written tasks. For instance, the chatbot can translate and summarize written texts, compose basic poems or song lyrics and offer definitions for particular terms.

Artificial intelligence (AI) could help scientists shed new light on the variety of species living on the ocean floor, according to new research led by the University of Plymouth. With increasing threats facing the marine environment, scientists desperately need more information about what inhabits the seabed in order to inform conservation and biodiversity management. Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) mounted with the latest cameras are now able to collect vast amounts of data, but a bottleneck is still created by humans having to process it. In a new study published in Marine Ecology Progress Series, marine scientists and robotics experts tested the effectiveness of a computer vision (CV) system in potentially fulfilling that role. They showed on average it is around 80% accurate in identifying various animals in images of the seabed, but can be up to 93% accurate for specific species if enough data is used to train the algorithm.