Team Ukraine have made a strong start at the Winter Paralympics, standing second in the medal table after three days of competition. One athlete has revealed a secret weapon in their search for a competitive edge: Maksym Murashkovskyi, who won silver in the men's visually impaired biathlon on Sunday without missing a shot, has been training with OpenAI's ChatGPT.
'For the past six months, I have been training with ChatGPT,' Murashkovskyi said. 'It was not only tactics. It was half of my training plan, motivation, etc. So it was a huge volume of all of my training. I used it as a psychologist, coach and, sometimes, as a doctor.'
The 25-year-old argued that AI allowed him to train in new ways. 'I believe in it, it is a revolutionary technology,' he said, adding that it had replaced what he called 'classical' training 'as I've always done, with humans'.
AI has been deployed in the conflict in Ukraine, used to find targets and analyse satellite footage. 'Unfortunately, you see it in the military sphere and in bad spheres,' he said. 'But it's like with chemistry or biology, someone can use it for something good, someone can use it for something bad. I use it for learning, for languages, for some of my projects, in chemistry, biology and sports.'
Ukraine have won ten medals at the Paralympic Games. Murashkovskyi will compete again in the visually impaired cross-country skiing on Tuesday.
