AI model of early child development also explains how language evolves
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 20-Jun-2026 16:16 ET (20-Jun-2026 20:16 GMT/UTC)
New research from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, has significant implications for understanding both human language development and the behaviour of large-scale artificial intelligence language models.
As artificial intelligence systems become increasingly sophisticated, questions once confined to philosophy are rapidly entering mainstream scientific and public debate: Can AI possess consciousness? Could animals, organoids, or even fetuses have subjective experiences?
A research team led by Director Hakwan LAU of the Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), together with collaborators from the Université de Montréal and New York University, has published a new analysis arguing that current scientific methods may not yet be capable of reliably answering such questions. The paper critically examines how consciousness is currently studied in neuroscience and argues that many widely used experimental approaches fail to clearly distinguish subjective experience from general information processing.Published in Energy Research & Social Science, the study analyzed 686 large-scale solar facilities that went online between January 2022 and November 2023. Researchers found that 56% of projects fell into “no” or “low” conflict categories, while 19% saw high levels of conflict.