News Artificial Intelligence

An AI used art to control monkeys’ brain cells

Such tailored regulation of neural activity could lead to new types of neuroscience experiments

neurons

FIRE IT UP  Showing weird patterns designed by an artificial intelligence program to macaques caused the monkeys’ brains to fire in ways that weren’t possible with real-world images.

Bruce Rolff/Shutterstock

By Maria Temming

New artwork created by artificial intelligence does weird things to the primate brain.

When shown to macaques, AI-generated images purposefully caused nerve cells in the monkeys’ brains to fire more than pictures of real-world objects.