People may trust computers more than humans
4 hours ago
New research shows that people are more likely to rely on algorithms
Despite increasing concern over the intrusion of algorithms in daily life, people may be more willing to trust a computer program than their fellow humans, especially if a task becomes too challenging, according to new research from data scientists at the University of Georgia.
From choosing the next song on your playlist to choosing the right size pants, people are relying more on the advice of algorithms to help make everyday decisions and streamline their lives.
“Algorithms are able to do a huge number of tasks, and the number of tasks that they are able to do is expanding practically every day,” said Eric Bogert, a Ph.D. student in the Terry College of Business Department of Management Information Systems. “It seems like there’s a bias towards leaning more heavily on algorithms as a task gets harder and that effect is stronger than the bias tow
People may trust computers more than humans – TodayHeadline
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A safer way to deploy bacteria as environmental sensors
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Credits: Image: Christine Daniloff, MIT
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In recent years, scientists have developed many strains of engineered bacteria that can be used as sensors to detect environmental contaminants such as heavy metals. If deployed in the natural environment, these sensors could help scientists track how pollutant levels change over time, over a wide geographic area.
MIT engineers have now devised a way to make this kind of deployment safer, by encasing bacterial sensors in a tough hydrogel shell that prevents them from escaping into the environment and potentially spreading modified genes to other organisms.
“Right now there are a lot of whole-cell biosensors being developed, but applying them in the real world is a challenge because we don’t want any genetically modified organisms to be able to exchange genetic material with wild-type microbes,” says MIT graduate student Tzu-Chieh Tang, one of the lead authors of the new stu