Study examines productivity effects of ChatGPT when used by college-educated professionals

A pair of economists at MIT have conducted an experiment designed to determine if the use of ChatGPT by college-educated professionals can make them more productive. In their study, reported in the journal Science, Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang designed and conducted a study in which college-educated professionals engaged in incentivized writing tasks.

Deepfake videos prompt false memories of films in half of participants

In a new study, deepfake video clips of movie remakes that don’t actually exist prompted participants to falsely remember the films—but simple text descriptions of the fake movies prompted similar false memory rates. Gillian Murphy of University College Cork, Ireland, and Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software, and colleagues presented these findings …

Pump powers soft robots, makes cocktails

Over the past several years, researchers have been developing soft analogues of traditionally rigid robotic components. In fluid-driven robotic systems, pumps control the pressure or flow of the liquid that powers the robot’s movement. Most pumps available today for soft robotics are either too large and rigid to fit onboard, not powerful enough for actuation …