But these systems are basically brains frozen in time. Tackling a new task sometimes requires a whole new round of training and learning, which erases what came before and costs millions of dollars. For ChatGPT and other AI tools, this means they become increasingly outdated over time.
This week, Dohare and colleagues found a way to solve the problem. The key is to selectively reset some artificial neurons after a task, but without substantially changing the entire network—a bit like what happens in the brain as we sleep.