NIOT to set-up Self-powered desalination plant in Lakshadweep
Why in News?
National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) is going to set-up green, self-powered desalination plant in Lakshadweep to provide portable water using Low Temperature Thermal Desalination (LTTD) technology.
What is Low Temperature Thermal Desalination (LTTD) technology?
The LTTD is a process under which the warm surface sea water is flash evaporated at low pressure and the vapor is condensed with cold deep-sea water.
- The LTTD technology does not require any chemical pre- and post-treatment of seawater and thus the pollution problems are minimal and suitable for island territories.
How does it work?
- LTTD exploits the difference in temperature (nearly 15°C) in ocean water at the surface and at depths of about 600 feet.
- This cold water condenses water at the surface, that is warmer but whose pressure has been lowered using vacuum pumps.
- Such de-pressurized water can evaporate even at ambient temperatures and this resulting vapor when condensed is free of salts and contaminants and fit to consume.
- Desalination plants provides at least 100,000 litres of potable water every day, are powered by diesel generator sets.
About National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT)
- The National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) was established in November 1993.
- It is an autonomous society under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) in India.
- The institute is based in Chennai.
- Aim: To solve various engineering problems associated with harvesting of non-living and living resources in India’s exclusive economic zone, which is about two-thirds of the land area of India.
OpenAI announced GPT-4
Why in News?
- OpenAI announced GPT-4 which is an update to the technology that powers ChatGPT and Microsoft Bing. GPT-4 is supposedly bigger, faster, and more accurate than ChatGPT.
- It clears several top examinations with flying colours, like the Uniform Bar Exam for those wanting to practice as lawyers in the US.
What is GPT-4?
GPT-4 is the latest version of ChatGPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer), an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot, which can comprehend and generate natural language or human text.
About Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT)
- Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT) is a kind of computer language model that relies on deep learning techniques to produce human-like text based on inputs.
- Deep learning is a subset of machine learning, which is essentially a neural network with three or more layers.
- These neural networks attempt to simulate the behavior of the human brain allowing it to “learn” from large amounts of data.
- Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT) is trained on large amounts of text data and employs an algorithm known as Transformer to learn how to generate text that resembles human conversation.
- GPT-4 is a large multimodal model (accepting text inputs and image, emitting text outputs) that is said to be bigger, faster, and more accurate than earlier versions.
- It can process a lot more information at a time and it is also more multilingual.
- Limitations: It is not fully reliable as it still hallucinates facts, makes reasoning errors and it can have various biases in its output and does not learn from its experience.