Social & Behavior
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 3-Dec-2025 22:11 ET (4-Dec-2025 03:11 GMT/UTC)
3-Dec-2025
Socially aware AI helps autonomous vehicles weave through crowds without collisions
ELSPPeer-Reviewed Publication
Researchers from Tongji University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have developed a socially aware prediction-to-control pipeline that lets autonomous vehicles safely navigate dense crowds by anticipating multiple ways pedestrians might move. Instead of betting on a single forecast, their system combines a Social GAN trajectory predictor with a real-time Model Predictive Control (MPC) planner, treating each predicted path as a moving obstacle. In dynamic crowd simulations, the integrated Social GAN+MPC controller achieved zero safety violations and maintained comfortable motion, all while meeting strict real-time computing limits—offering a practical route toward zero-collision autonomous driving in busy urban environments.
- Journal
- Robot Learning
3-Dec-2025
Concern over harmful medical advice from social media influencers
BMJ GroupPeer-Reviewed Publication
Biased or misleading medical advice shared by social media influencers can cause harm and requires coordinated action by governments and platforms to protect the public, argue experts in The BMJ today.
- Journal
- The BMJ
3-Dec-2025
To make AI more fair, tame complexity
University of Texas at AustinPeer-Reviewed Publication
Biases in AI’s models and algorithms can actively harm some of its users and promote social injustice. Documented biases have led to different medical treatments due to patients’ demographics and corporate hiring tools that discriminate against female and Black candidates.
New research from Texas McCombs suggests both a previously unexplored source of AI biases and some ways to correct for them: complexity.
- Journal
- MIS Quarterly
3-Dec-2025
Scores of dinosaurs walked and swam along a Bolivian shoreline
PLOSPeer-Reviewed Publication
A fossil site in Bolivia preserves thousands of traces of dinosaurs who walked, ran, and swam along an ancient coastline, according to a study published December 3, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Raúl Esperante of the Geoscience Research Institute, California, U.S., and colleagues.
- Journal
- PLOS One
3-Dec-2025
Authoritative parenting styles are associated with better mental health and self-esteem among adolescents, while authoritarian parenting styles are associated with depression and lower self-esteem and permissive parenting styles are associated with stress
PLOSPeer-Reviewed Publication
Authoritative parenting styles are associated with better mental health and self-esteem among adolescents, while authoritarian parenting styles are associated with depression and lower self-esteem and permissive parenting styles are associated with stress, according to Nepalese study of 583 adolescents
- Journal
- PLOS One
3-Dec-2025
A rose by any other name? Not necessarily—how words sound aesthetically correlates with their memorability, study finds
PLOSPeer-Reviewed Publication
A rose by any other name? Not necessarily—how words sound aesthetically correlates with their memorability, study finds
- Journal
- PLOS One