Crowds Fix Fake News, Choking Under Pressure, Punching Robot Shrimp
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 963 Ratings
🗓️ 1 November 2021
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn about crowdsourced fact checking; why humans and monkeys choke under pressure; and a mantis shrimp punching robot.
Join Cody and Ashley for a special live stream celebrating Curiosity Daily’s 1,000th episode! Leave us a voicemail at 312-596-5208 or email a voice recording to curiosity@discovery.com and share your favorite fact you've learned from the podcast, and you may hear your message on the stream! Register for free here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/curiosity-dailys-1000th-episode-celebration-tickets-191163133077
Crowdsourced fact checking might actually work on social media by Steffie Drucker
- Study: Crowds can wise up to fake news. (2021, September). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/926824
- Allen, J., Arechar, A. A., Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2021). Scaling up fact-checking using the wisdom of crowds. Science Advances, 7(36). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abf4393
- Edelman, G. (2021, September 9). Can the Wisdom of Crowds Help Fix Social Media’s Trust Issue? Wired. Retrieved September 27, 2021, from https://www.wired.com/story/could-wisdom-of-crowds-help-fix-social-media-trust-problem
Monkeys choke under pressure just like humans do, which gives us a chance to better understand it by Grant Currin
- Levy, M. G. (2021, September 2). You’re Not Alone: Monkeys Choke Under Pressure Too. Wired; WIRED. https://www.wired.com/story/youre-not-alone-monkeys-choke-under-pressure-too/
- Smoulder, A. L., Pavlovsky, N. P., Marino, P. J., Degenhart, A. D., McClain, N. T., Batista, A. P., & Chase, S. M. (2021). Monkeys exhibit a paradoxical decrease in performance in high-stakes scenarios. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(35), e2109643118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2109643118
Scientists just built a mantis shrimp punching robot for the US Army by Cameron Duke
- Mantis Shrimps. (2021). Qld.gov.au. https://www.qm.qld.gov.au/Explore/Find+out+about/Animals+of+Queensland/Crustaceans/Common+marine+crustaceans/Mantis+Shrimps#.U7ZwLPmSxMg
- Small, mighty robots mimic the powerful punch of mantis shrimp. (2021, September 9). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/927975
- Steinhardt, E., Hyun, N. P., Koh, J., Freeburn, G., Rosen, M. H., Temel, F. Z., Patek, S. N., & Wood, R. J. (2021). A physical model of mantis shrimp for exploring the dynamics of ultrafast systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(33), e2026833118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2026833118
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com. |
| 0:06.5 | I'm Cody Gough. |
| 0:07.5 | And I'm Ashley Hamer. |
| 0:08.5 | Today you learn about whether crowdsourced fact-checking actually works. what monkeys choking under pressure tells us about why humans do too, and why scientists built a mantis shrimp punching robot. |
| 0:20.0 | Let's satisfy some curiosity. |
| 0:23.0 | To counter misinformation, social media platforms have started turning to fact checkers. |
| 0:29.0 | But if fact checkers can only check a small fraction of the many, many posts shared each day, |
| 0:35.6 | what hope do we have in the fight against fake news? |
| 0:39.2 | That dilemma is why a new MIT study is such a breath of fresh air. |
| 0:43.2 | It found that large groups of ordinary people |
| 0:46.7 | were just as good as professional fact checkers |
| 0:49.7 | at assessing the accuracy of news stories. |
| 0:52.0 | To cut down on misinformation, we just need the wisdom of crowds. |
| 0:57.0 | To test the power of crowd-sourced fact-checking, |
| 1:01.0 | MIT scientists compiled 2007 news stories flagged by Facebook's |
| 1:05.8 | algorithm for further scrutiny. These stories were either flagged because they |
| 1:10.3 | were going viral, they concerned sensitive topics like health, or they were |
| 1:14.4 | believed to contain misinformation. |
| 1:16.6 | The team recruited 1,100 U.S. residents to read just the headline and lead |
| 1:21.8 | sentence of 20 stories each. |
| 1:24.1 | Participants answered seven questions about each piece in order to rate factors like its |
| 1:28.7 | truthfulness, reliability, and objectivity. |
... |
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