Generative AI models have made it simpler and quicker to produce everything from text passages and images to video clips and audio tracks. But while AI's output can certainly seem creative, do these models actually boost human creativity? That's what two researchers set out to explore by studying how people used OpenAI's large language model GPT-4 to write short stories. The model was helpful--but only to an extent. They found that while AI improved the output of less creative writers, it made little difference to the quality of the stories produced by writers who were already creative.

Last month, Chinese national He Jiankui flouted a vigorous scientific debate when he told a room full of scientists that he had manipulated the embryos of Chinese twins, using Crispr to make one resistant to their father's HIV. He revealed to the group that the twins of the experiment had already been born. The big reveal was ethically dubious at best. He never went through proper channels to get his experiment approved. The scientist is being condemned by his contemporaries for ignoring universally respected protocol and forgoing peer research.