1 . Human responses to moral dilemmas (道德困境) can be influenced by statements written by the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. The findings indicate that users may undervalue the extent to which their own moral judgments can be influenced by the chatbot.

Sebastian Krigel and colleagues asked ChatGPT multiple times whether it is right to sacrifice (牺牲) the life of one person in order to save the lives of five others. They found that ChatGPT wrote random statements arguing both for and against sacrificing one life, indicating that it is not biased towards a certain moral stance (立场).

The authors then presented 767 U.S. participants, who were on average 39 years old, with a dilemma whether to sacrifice one person’s life to save five others. Before answering, participants read a statement provided by ChatGPT arguing either for or against sacrificing one life to save five. Statements were from either a moral advisor or ChatGPT. After answering, participants were asked whether the statement they read influenced their answers.

Eighty percent of participants reported that their answers were not influenced by the statements they read. However, the authors found that the answers participants believed they would have provided without reading the statements were still more likely to agree with the moral stance of the statement they did read than with the opposite stance. This indicates that participants may have underestimated the influence of ChatGPT’s statements on their own moral judgments.

The authors suggest that the possibility for chatbots to influence human moral judgments highlights the need for education to help humans better understand artificial intelligence. They propose that future research should design chatbots that either decline to answer questions requiring a moral judgment or answer these questions by providing multiple arguments and warnings.

2 . How is eating in space different from eating on Earth?

If you send astronauts into space, you have to send along food as well. But what do astronauts eat, and how do they eat it? Scientists take several factors into consideration as they plan meals for space.

First, and possibly most important, is nutrition (营养).     1     Providing junk food to eat, such as potato chips, sodas, and pizza, would make the astronauts unhealthy.

    2     If the food that has been provided is distasteful, then the astronauts may avoid eating it. If you’ve ever tried to concentrate on something important while your stomach doesn’t feel well, you’ll know why the scientists in charge of a space mission want their astronauts to eat regularly.

The lack of gravity in a spacecraft also determines what foods can or cannot be eaten in space. Meals must be packaged carefully so they won’t spill (洒落/溢出) into the cabin (one of the areas inside a spacecraft). Water or tiny bits of food could get inside a machine or electronic device and damage it.     3     A loose knife bouncing (弹起) around inside the cabin would be dangerous.

    4     The weight of every object included in a spacecraft must be calculated (计算) in order to ensure that there is enough fuel and power to carry the craft safely into space and back home again.     5     Most foods are stored in plastic bags, and often, the foods are dehydrated (使脱水). When an astronaut is ready to eat, hot water is added to the meal and warm it up.

Despite all these requirements, much of the food eaten in space is actually similar to what you might eat on any given day.

4 . ChatGPT, designed by OpenAI to carry on conversations just like humans, has become a viral excitement. The AI-powered tool went from zero to a million users in just five days! Its ability to provide in-depth answers to user questions has even drawn the attention of distinguished technology companies.

The intelligent robot understands what the user says or types and then answers in a way that makes sense. Its vast body of knowledge has been gathered from the internet and archived (归档) books. It is further trained by humans. “We have a lot of information on the internet, but you normally have to Google it, then read it and then do something with it,” says Ricardo, chief science officer and co-founder of AI company Erudit. “Now you’ll have this resource that can process (处理，加工) the whole internet and all of the information it contains for you to answer your question.” This makes ChatGPT a useful tool for researching almost any topic.

ChatGPT cannot think on its own. It depends on the information that it has been trained on. As a result, the Al tool works well for things that have accurate data available. However, when unsure, ChatGPT can get creative and flow out incorrect responses. OpenAI cautions (提醒) users to check the information no matter how logical it sounds. Also, ChatGPT has only been trained with information till 2021. Hence, it cannot be relied upon for anything that happened after that.

Experts believe ChatGPT has limitless potential to solve real-world problems. It can translate long texts into different languages, create content on almost any topic, and even summarize books.

However, ChatGPT has received mixed reactions from educators. Some believe it could serve as a valuable tool to help build literacy skills in the classroom. It could also be used to teach students difficult science or math concepts. But other educators think ChatGPT will encourage students to cheat. They fear this will prevent them from building critical thinking and problem-solving skills. As a result, many districts are starting to ban its use in schools.