Monday, January 27, 2025

Beyond ChatGPT: WVU researchers to study use and ethics of artificial intelligence across disciplines

West Virginia University

Two West Virginia University researchers have designed a curriculum to engage liberal arts faculty in discussions on the social, ethical and technical aspects of artificial intelligence and its role in classrooms.

Through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Erin Brock Carlson, assistant professor of English, and Scott Davidson, professor of philosophy, both at the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, have designed an interdisciplinary, cross-institutional program to facilitate conversations among faculty about the benefits and drawbacks of AI, how it functions and the need for human interpretation.

The award will fund a summer workshop in which Carlson and Davidson will offer AI trainings for humanities faculty and guide them through creation and development of courses with an AI component. The researchers will then assist as faculty offer those courses to students, assess progress and help with the implementation of the projects that develop.

The researchers said they hope to challenge the notion that artificial intelligence research falls into the domain of STEM fields.

“The humanities gets overlooked and underappreciated so often,” Carlson said. “We are doing important, meaningful research, just like our colleagues in STEM and other fields. This is a chance to use a humanities lens to examine contemporary problems and developments like artificial intelligence and also to get conversations going between fields that oftentimes don’t talk to one another as much as we should.”

Co-directors Carlson and Davidson will be joined by a team of mentors and fellows — two from data science fields and two from the humanities perspective — that will serve and assist as resources in the interdisciplinary conversations. The seminar and summer workshops will support the creation or redesign of 10 courses. They plan to invite off-campus experts to help facilitate the workshops, work with the faculty and support their projects.

“It’s really about expanding capacity at the University and in the humanities to investigate the implications of AI or to actually use AI in humanities courses, whether it’s for writing, creating art or creating projects through the use of AI,” Davidson said. “There are a lot of different possibilities and directions that we hope these courses take. If we have 10 of them, it’s really going to have a big impact on humanities education here at the University.”

Carlson and Davidson acknowledge that attitudes about AI tend to be either extremely optimistic or extremely skeptical but that the reality is somewhere in the middle.

“AI is such a simplistic term to describe a whole suite of different technologies and developments that folks are dealing with every day, whether they know it or not,” Carlson said, noting that discussions could focus on personal, social and economic impacts of AI use, as well as how it affects character and intellectual values.

Davidson was inspired to focus on AI when he found an erroneous, AI-generated summary of one of his own articles.

“It was totally wrong,” he said. “I didn’t say those things, and it made me think about how somebody might look me up and find that summary of my article and get this false impression of me. That really highlighted that we need to build an understanding in students of the need to inquire deeper and to understand that you have to be able to evaluate AI’s accuracy and its reliability.”

Carlson and Davidson said the conversations need to consider AI’s drawbacks, as well. Using AI consumes large amounts of water and electricity resulting in greenhouse emissions. Data centers produce electronic waste that can contain mercury and lead.

They also intend to follow legal cases and precedents surrounding the use of AI.

“That’s another aspect of AI and the ways that it represents people,” Carlson said. “Because it has a very real, material impact on people in communities. It’s not just a super computer in a room. It’s a network that has a bunch of different implications for a bunch of different people, ranging from jobs to familial relationships. That’s the value of the humanities — to ask these tough questions because it’s increasingly difficult to avoid all of it.”

Conversations, as they expand, will need to keep up with the pace of AI’s rapidly developing landscape.

“There’s going to be a lot of people involved in this,” she said. “We put together an amazing team. We want it to be an open, honest and ethical conversation that brings in other folks and opens up further conversations across the College and the University at large.”

Trump clusters: How an English lit graduate used AI to make sense of Twitter bios

Analyzing social trends, disaster responses or customer insights using large language models to organize short text clusters just got easier.

University of Sydney

An English literature graduate turned data scientist has developed a new method for large language models (LLMs) used by AI chatbots to understand and analyse small chunks of text, such as those on social media profiles, in customer responses online or for understanding online posts responding to disaster events.

In today’s digital world, such use of short text has become central to online communication. However, analysing these snippets is challenging because they often lack shared words or context. This lack of context makes it difficult for AI to find patterns or group similar texts.

The new research addresses the problem by using large language models (LLMs) to group large datasets of short text into clusters. These clusters condense potentially millions of tweets or comments into easy-to-understand groups generated by the model.

PhD student Justin Miller has developed this method for use by AI programs that successfully produced coherent categories after analysing nearly 40,000 Twitter (X) user biographies from accounts tweeting about US President Donald Trump over two days in September 2020.

The language model developed by Mr Miller, an English literature graduate, clustered the biographies into 10 categories, and allocated scores within each of these categories to assist in analysing the likely occupation of the tweeters, their political leaning, or even their use of emojis.

The study is published in the Royal Society Open Science journal.

Mr Miller said: “What makes this study stand out is its focus on human-centred design. The clusters created by the large language models are not only computationally effective but also make sense to people.

“For instance, texts about family, work, or politics are grouped in ways that humans can intuitively name and understand. Furthermore, the research shows that generative AI, such as ChatGPT, can mimic how humans interpret these clusters.

“In some cases, the AI provided clearer and more consistent cluster names than human reviewers, particularly when distinguishing meaningful patterns from background noise.”

Mr Miller, a doctoral candidate in the School of Physics and a member of the Computational Social Sciences lab, said the tool he has developed could be used to simplify large datasets, gain insights for decision making and improve search and organisation.

Using large language models (LLMs), the authors created clusters using a methodology known as “Gaussian mixture modelling” that capture the essence of the text and are easier for humans to understand. They validated these clusters by comparing human interpretations with those from a generative LLM, which closely matched human reviews.

This approach not only improved clustering quality but also suggests that human reviews, while valuable, might not be the only standard for cluster validation.

Mr Miller said: “Large datasets, which would be impossible to manually read, can be reduced into meaningful, manageable groups.”

Applications include:

Simplifying Large Datasets: Large datasets, which would be impossible to manually read, can be reduced into meaningful, manageable groups. For example, Mr Miller applied the same methods from this paper to another project on the Russia-Ukraine war. By clustering over 1 million social media posts, he identified 10 distinct topics, including Russian disinformation campaigns, the use of animals as symbols in humanitarian relief, and Azerbaijan’s attempts to showcase its support for Ukraine.
Gain Insights for Decision-Making: Clusters provide actionable insights for organisations, governments and businesses. A business might use clustering to identify what customers like or dislike about their product, while governments could use it to condense wide ranging public sentiment into a few topics.
Improve Search and Organisation: For platforms handling large volumes of user-generated content, clustering makes it easier to organise, filter and retrieve relevant information. This method can help users quickly find what they’re looking for and improve overall content management.

Mr Miller said: “This dual use of AI for clustering and interpretation opens up significant possibilities. By reducing reliance on costly and subjective human reviews, it offers a scalable way to make sense of massive amounts of text data. From social media trend analysis to crisis monitoring or customer insights, this approach combines machine efficiency with human understanding to organise and explain data effectively.”

-ENDS-

Interviews

Justin Miller | justin.k.miller@sydney.edu.au

Media enquiries

Marcus Strom | marcus.strom@sydney.edu.au | +61 474 269 459

Research

Miller, J. and Alexander, T. ‘Human-interpretable clustering of short text using large language models’ (Royal Society Open Science 2025) DOI: 10.1098/rsos.241692

Declaration: The researchers declare no conflicts.

Outside of work hours, please call +61 2 8627 0246 (this directs to a mobile number) or email media.office@sydney.edu.au.

Journal

Royal Society Open Science

DOI

10.1098/rsos.241692

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Human-interpretable clustering of short text using large language models

Article Publication Date

21-Jan-2025

Complete recombination map of the human-genome, a major step in genetics

Scientists at deCODE genetics/Amgen have constructed a complete map of how human DNA is mixed as it is passed down during reproduction

deCODE genetics

Authors on the paper in Nature, Complete human recombination maps. — image:
Authors on the paper in Nature: Complete human recombination maps, Kari Stefansson CEO of deCODE genetics with Bjarni V. Halldorsson and Gunnar Palsson, scientists at deCODE genetics.
view more
Credit: deCODE genetics

Scientists at deCODE genetics/Amgen have constructed a complete map of how human DNA is mixed as it is passed down during reproduction. The map marks a major step in the understanding of genetic diversity and its impact on health and fertility. It continues 25 years of research at deCODE genetics into how new diversity is generated in the human genome, and its relationship to health and disease.

The new map, appearing today in the online edition of Nature, is the first to incorporate shorter-scale shuffling, (non crossover) of grandparental DNA, which is difficult to detect due to the high DNA sequence similarity. The map also identifies areas of DNA that are devoid of major reshuffling, likely to protect critical genetic functions or prevent chromosomal problems. This insight offers a clearer picture of why some pregnancies fail and how the genome balances diversity with stability.

While this shuffling, known as recombination, is essential for genetic diversity, errors in the process can lead to serious reproductive issues. These failures can result in genetic errors that prevent pregnancies from continuing, helping to explain why infertility affects around one in ten couples worldwide. Understanding this process offers new hope for improving fertility treatments and diagnosing pregnancy complications.

The research also reveals key differences between men and women in how and where, the genome recombination occurs. Women have fewer non-crossover recombinatios, but their frequency increases with age, which may help explain why older maternal age is associated with higher risks of pregnancy complications and chromosomal disorders of the child. Men, however, do not show this age-related change, although recombination in both sexes can contribute to mutations passed to offspring.

Understanding the recombination process is also important in understanding how humans evolved as a species and what shapes individual differences, including health outcomes. All human genetic diversity can be traced to recombination and de novo mutations, DNA sequence present in the child but not in the parents. The map shows that mutations are elevated near regions of DNA mixing and consequently that the two processes are highly correlated.

-----

Based in Reykjavik, Iceland, deCODE genetics is a global leader in analyzing and understanding the human genome. Using its unique expertise and population resources, deCODE has discovered genetic risk factors for dozens of common diseases. The purpose of understanding the genetics of disease is to use that information to create new means of diagnosing, treating and preventing disease. deCODE genetics is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN).

Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-024-08450-5

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Complete human recombination maps

Article Publication Date

22-Jan-2025

Exploring decision making in people with obsessive compulsive disorder

Association for Psychological Science

Although obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) can be treated, research has shown that people with the disorder tend to have a lower quality of life than neurotypical people (Remmerswaal et al., 2016). Many struggle to achieve the same levels of education and financial stability as people without the disorder.

In a recent Clinical Psychological Science study, researchers theorized one cognitive process could be to blame: decision making. In their November study, Karolina Lempert and her coauthors (2024) examined decision making in people with OCD. To do so, they focused on two measures, delay discounting and risk tolerance.

The researchers first looked at delay discounting, which is the tendency to prefer instant rewards to those you have to wait for, even when the delayed reward is greater. Researchers sometimes describe delay discounting as a measure of impulsiveness. In previous studies, people with higher delay discounting scores were more likely to have problems with addiction, overspending, and sedentary behavior (Amlung et al., 2017; Bartels et al., 2023; MacKillop et al., 2011; McClelland et al., 2016).

Previous studies have also shown that people with OCD tend to have low risk tolerance—a measure of someone’s willingness to gamble on a decision with uncertain outcomes—making it difficult for the person to make a decision when the outcome is unknown, Lempert said.

Lempert and her team hypothesized people with OCD would have high delay discounting and low risk tolerance—making decision making even harder. This is comparable to the strain that a neurotypical person feels when they are presented with many choices and feel unable to decide, also known as decision paralysis.

They examined this theory by studying 268 people with OCD and 256 people without OCD from Brazil, India, Netherlands, South Africa, and the United States. None of the participants were medicated during the study.

The researchers ran 51 trials of a test designed to measure delay discounting. Participants were asked to choose between receiving a smaller amount of money immediately or a larger amount of money later. For example, a person would be asked whether they preferred receiving $10 dollars immediately or $25 in 100 days.

After controlling for factors like sex, age, and education, Lempert and colleagues found people with OCD had similar delay discounting to participants without OCD. There were, however, some differences within the OCD group itself. Those with the condition who also had high levels of confounding conditions like anxiety had a greater preference for immediate rewards than did people without confounding conditions.

“It was pretty clear that there was no difference between people with OCD and healthy controls on that task and in that preference, which to me, was actually not that surprising,” Lempert said in an interview.

She said these results challenge the notion that in most psychiatric disorders, people struggle with high levels of delay discounting. If it holds true that delay discounting is only altered in certain conditions, then psychiatrists may be able to use its presence to diagnose those disorders.

“The more that we discover what symptoms exactly are linked to what decision tendencies, we might have a better way of predicting specifically for individuals what we might expect from their decision making,” Lempert said.

The researchers then ran 60 trials of a test designed to measure risk aversion, where participants presented with a hypothetical had to decide whether they would rather be guaranteed to earn a smaller amount of money or whether they would gamble to receive a larger amount of money. For example, a person would be asked whether they wanted $1 for certain or take a gamble with 50 percent odds for earning $10.

They found no significant difference between the participants with OCD and the control subjects, even in those with anxiety. Lempert said previous studies also found this result. Lempert’s study featured a bigger, more diverse sample size than previous research.

Because they found delay discounting and risk tolerance were not altered in people with OCD, Lempert suggested that other tests of cognition and decision making may be more fruitful for researchers to study in the future.

“Just knowing those specifics will really help in the future for developing more individualized interventions,” Lempert said.

Journal

Clinical Psychological Science

DOI

10.1177/21677026241289927

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Delay Discounting and Risk Tolerance in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Results From the Global OCD Study

Fruit flies’ courtship song may hold key to controlling mosquitoes

University of Iowa

Mating flies — video:
Researchers at the University of Iowa have found the gene that orchestrates the fine tuning of antennae in fruit flies so they're on the same frequency for mating. In this video, a male fruit fly (species *Drosophila melanogaster)* flaps its wings, creating a distinct "song" to attract a female. Mosquitoes have the same gene and a similar courtship ritual, meaning that canceling the gene could in theory control mosquito population growth.
view more
Credit: Daniel Eberl lab, University of Iowa

How fruit flies mate may hold a key to limiting the spread of diseases by mosquitoes.

In a new study, University of Iowa researchers found a gene that orchestrates the antenna movements of female fruit flies, which is central for them to detect the unique sound produced by prospective male mates. That gene, the Iowa researchers say, is present in mosquitoes and can be silenced, which in theory would lessen the chances of mating, and thus limit mosquitoes’ population growth.

Mosquitoes are well-known vectors for a host of diseases that affect human health. In the United States, those diseases include West Nile virus, Eastern equine encephalitis, and Zika. Female mosquitoes spread those diseases among animals and humans when biting them, extracting blood contaminated with a disease germ that then can be transmitted to others in subsequent bites.

“Mosquitoes actually have a very similar mechanism to fruit flies of a type of active tuning, which could have implications for deterring the spread of so many diseases,” says Daniel Eberl, professor in the Department of Biology at Iowa and the study’s corresponding author. “So, understanding how fruit flies and mosquitoes not only mate but also how they hear could have important considerations for human health.”

The researchers used tiny microphones to pick up sound when a species of male fruit fly flaps its wings. It’s those vibrations, or pulses, in the air from the beating of the wings that are picked by the antennae of the female fruit flies, signaling that a male mate is present. You can think of a female fruit fly’s antenna as a sensory organ, which “hears” the vibrations similarly to the human ear.

What is interesting is that not every courtship song is the same.

“I think a key point for us is that the songs that they sing are a little bit different in closely related species,” Eberl says. “The spacing between the pulses is distinct for each species. And that's why it's important, because they want to mate with a mate from their own species. So, the song helps them give that recognition of same species.”

Biologists have known female flies tune their antennae to a frequency similar to the range of sound emanating from a male of a similar species. What they didn’t know is how exactly that fine-tuning took place, and specifically where.

The Iowa researchers examined the hearing in Drosophila melanogaster, a well-known and long-studied species of fruit fly. In particular, they studied the fly’s Johnston’s organ, located in the antenna, and the place where sound is detected. Within the Johnston’s organ, they found and studied a pathway called a potassium ion channel, which energizes neurons involved in the fly’s hearing. Investigating further, they learned that a gene, called Shal, is the gatekeeper of sorts for the ion channel, dictating when outside sounds or movements are converted to electrical signals that are then passed along between neurons. That cascade of events, managed by the Shal gene, seemed essential for the fly to hear.

The researchers then canceled the Shal gene to confirm its role in a female fly’s antenna tuning, and thus, its hearing.

“Without the Shal gene, it loses that ability to tune,” says Eli Gregory, an undergraduate human physiology major from Cedar Rapids who carried out the gene-canceling experiments. “The female loses its ability to tune that antenna to that frequency. And so, you get this lower response in mating from that female.”

Mosquitoes employ a similar method in their courtship rituals.

That means “we could conceivably knock out that gene or that potassium channel and prevent mosquitoes from being able to mate as effectively as they do, which could mean fewer mosquitoes; therefore, fewer problems for human health,” Eberl says.

The study, “The voltage-gated potassium channel Shal (Kv4) contributes to active hearing in Drosophila,” was published online Dec. 17 in eNeuro, an open access journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

Study co-authors include Mei-ling Joiner, assistant research scientist and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Iowa; and YiFeng Xu, Tai-Ting Lee, Azusa Kamikouchi, and Matthew Su from Nagoya University in Japan.

The U.S. National Science Foundation, University of Iowa Office for Undergraduate Research, JSPS Invitational Fellowships for Research in Japan, Nagoya University, and the Japan Science and Technology Agency FOREST program funded the research.

Journal

eNeuro

DOI

10.1523/ENEURO.0083-24.2024

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

The Voltage-Gated Potassium Channel Shal (Kv4) Contributes to Active Hearing in Drosophila

PREPSOIL webinar explores soil literacy among youth: Why it matters and how educators can foster it

The PREPSOIL project, a pivotal initiative within the EU's Mission Soil framework, will host an engaging webinar on February 13, 2025, focusing on the importance of soil literacy among young people.

Aarhus University

Soil Literacy Among Young People — image:
PREPSOIL Webinar Explores Soil Literacy Among Youth: Why It Matters and How Educators Can Foster It
view more
Credit: PREPSOIL

The PREPSOIL project, a pivotal initiative within the EU's Mission Soil framework, will host an engaging webinar on February 13, 2025, focusing on the importance of soil literacy among young people. The event highlights the vital connection between young citizens and soil health, offering educators innovative ways to integrate soil-related topics into their curriculum.

As part of the Mission Soil's eight goals, increasing soil literacy across Member States aims to foster greater awareness, involvement, and proactive behavior toward soil health. By embedding soil health education in school curriculums, the initiative seeks to empower the next generation to take informed actions to protect and restore our soils.

For the past two years, PREPSOIL has compiled exemplary practices in soil pedagogy across EU countries. These efforts culminate in the upcoming webinar, showcasing inspiring examples and offering actionable insights for educators.

Webinar Highlights

The event will feature expert speakers and award-winning projects, including:

The Mission Soil and PREPSOIL: An introduction by Christina Lundström (SLU) to the goals of Mission Soil and PREPSOIL's calls for soil education practices.
Why Increase Youth Access to Nature and Its Soils? A presentation by Fredrika Mårtensson (SLU), highlighting the critical role in fostering a sustainable connection to nature and soil literacy .
Celebrating Pedagogical Excellence: Experiences from the winners of the PREPSOIL 2024 competition:
- Love Your Wellies by Katie Smirnova of the FarmPEAT Project.
- The Soil to Educate by Erika Guerrini of Istituto Pluricomprensivo Brunico.

Why Soil Literacy Matters

Soil is the foundation of life, yet it is often overlooked in environmental education. As young people become increasingly disconnected from nature, soil literacy provides an opportunity to inspire meaningful change in behavior and attitudes toward environmental stewardship. The PREPSOIL webinar will bridge this gap by equipping educators with inspiration and ideas to foster this essential knowledge.

Registration Details

The webinar is open to educators, environmental professionals, policymakers, and anyone interested in fostering soil literacy. Register today to join this vital conversation and contribute to a sustainable future for our soils and ecosystems.

Date: February 13, 2025
Time: 15:00 – 16:00 CET
Location: Online

For more information and to register, visit https://prepsoil.eu

Webinar Highlights

The event will feature expert speakers and award-winning projects, including:

The Mission Soil and PREPSOIL: An introduction by Christina Lundström (SLU) to the goals of Mission Soil and PREPSOIL's calls for soil education practices.
Why Increase Youth Access to Nature and Its Soils? A presentation by Fredrika Mårtensson (SLU), highlighting the critical role in fostering a sustainable connection to nature and soil literacy .
Celebrating Pedagogical Excellence: Experiences from the winners of the PREPSOIL 2024 competition:
- Love Your Wellies by Katie Smirnova of the FarmPEAT Project.
- The Soil to Educate by Erika Guerrini of Istituto Pluricomprensivo Brunico.

Why Soil Literacy Matters

Registration Details

Date: February 13, 2025
Time: 15:00 – 16:00 CET
Location: Online

For more information and to register, visit https://prepsoil.eu

About PREPSOIL
The PREPSOIL project is a collaborative initiative under the EU’s Mission Soil framework, dedicated to advancing soil health education and fostering sustainable soil stewardship. Through research, advocacy, and education, PREPSOIL empowers citizens and educators to protect the foundations of life on Earth.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Monday, January 27, 2025

Beyond ChatGPT: WVU researchers to study use and ethics of artificial intelligence across disciplines

Trump clusters: How an English lit graduate used AI to make sense of Twitter bios

Journal

DOI

Method of Research

Subject of Research

Article Title

Article Publication Date

Complete recombination map of the human-genome, a major step in genetics

Journal

DOI

Method of Research

Subject of Research

Article Title

Article Publication Date

Exploring decision making in people with obsessive compulsive disorder

Journal

DOI

Method of Research

Subject of Research

Article Title

Fruit flies’ courtship song may hold key to controlling mosquitoes

Journal

DOI

Method of Research

Subject of Research

Article Title

PREPSOIL webinar explores soil literacy among youth: Why it matters and how educators can foster it

About Me