Recently, some authors concluded a study in the US, conducted with participants who had at some point served prison. The study involved making them watch a movie. Just Mercy.
The participants identified either as left-leaning or right:
left: socialist / liberal / conservative
right: libertarian
They were tested for the change in their outlook towards criminal justice reform before and after watching the movie.
Finding - watching the movie Just Mercy significantly increased support for reform among all subgroups, despite pre-existing differences based on their political ideologies.
So no, a movie is not just a movie. Storytelling through movies can be used to change the way we think / our attitudes. In this particular case, the reason the attitude changed after watching the movie was because it increased something called “Empathic Accuracy” of the participants - ability to accurately infer the emotions of others (which the authors figured out how to measure, as you will find in the paper linked above).
Anyhow, now on to two more things. Will continue with another research finding to begin with…
Thing 1
Many economic growth models assume that - when no. of researchers remains the same, economic growth remains the same. But does it?
I came across a 2017 paper as per which, today it requires more researchers to achieve the same rate of economic growth than in the past. Which basically means, when no. of researchers remains the same, growth goes down. And that to even maintain the same level of growth as earlier, researcher-number need to keep going up!
Consider the following examples:
If we define “Research Productivity” (RP) as: output of ideas / inputs used to generate them, then what the authors of the study found out was - wherever one looks, RP in 2015 was less than say what it was in 2000.
But to sustain the same level of growth, if the number of researchers and research inputs needs to keep increasing, does it mean that we will eventually hit an upper limit to growth? What do you think?
Why has RP gone down to begin with? The authors postulate that one of the reasons behind it could be the gradual depletion of the "Low-Hanging Fruit": i.e. most straightforward ideas may have already been discovered, making it increasingly challenging to find new, impactful innovations.
Keep in mind that this is a 2017 paper when ChatGPT and GenAI were not as much of buzzwords as the are today. So I wonder if the authors would re-asses their take on declining RP today!
Anyway, let me carry on with this AI theme in the next thing too…
Thing 2
Art drawn by human like robot, likely to fetch over ~$100k
I recently learnt that a human-like robot - Ai-Da, has drawn a portrait of Alan Turning, which is going up for auction at Sotheby's and is estimated to sell for a whopping $120K to $180K!! Ai-Da basically uses cameras in her eyes, AI algorithms, and a robotic arm to create her art.
Alright, so now you have learnt that a movie is not just a movie + 2 more things. May you get to do more of what brings you joy and less of what sucks it away. Will see you soon, when I have more interesting things to share and write about! It’s a Sunday. Go watch a movie now, may be? :) Be picky, of course!