Harry Potter books are bringing the magic to generative AI

If you have been following the AI space over the past couple of years, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to you that the magical world of generative AI has its roots grounded in very scientific machine learning. But here’s what’s really interesting. While theorems and current affairs have their own place in powering modern AI chatbots and making them smarter, fiction is also helping generative AI expand its horizons.

This is why some of the more recent latest books that have been used to train generative AI are from JK Rowling’s popular Harry Potter series. These popular novels are already helping AI models get smarter, something that will someday translate to how we use AI on our smartphones and other devices. Here’s how.

How Harry Potter novels are powering up AI models

As per a Mint report, AI researchers are taking a trip back to Hogwarts to experiment with large language models, or LLMs. This is because the Harry Potter books, which stand for peak fictional creativity, also make for some great fodder for LLMs, thanks to their wordplay and large influence over popular culture.

ALSO READ: Harry Potter spells you can cast with your smartphone

The books have been helping AI models to more accurately respond to natural language thanks to a large resource of world-building, dialogue and even emotional moments.

The possibilities are practically endless, from basics like better summarising large text extracts from the web, to creating images from text descriptions – all made more powerful by chatbots understanding prompts better than ever before. While the PotterVerse books likely aren’t the only pieces of fiction being used to this end-goal, the fundamental process at work here, is no less than magical.

Casting the ‘Obliviate’ spell

A study called “Who’s Harry Potter?” also explores a new technique that allows LLMs to actually forget information. While this may sound counter-productive, it does help AI models to completely grasp characters like Hermione Granger or Albus Dumbledore, before forgetting them but retaining their analytical and decision-making abilities.

ALSO READ: How to ‘talk’ to ChatGPT using your phone

Microsoft researchers Mark Russinovich and Ronen Eldan suggest this training could be useful at a time when AI companies are constantly facing legal battles over training datasets. The new technique allows AI to both learn and unlearn abilities, the latter quite literally giving a whole new context to the obliviate spell from the Harry Potter books.

How these techniques will improve AI functionality, or what new use-cases will this power in the long run, remains to be seen. For now, Potterheads will be glad to know that the books they loved growing up with, now have a whole new purpose – bringing their magic to our very real world.