The Oxford student side hustle reshaping social science research

As a doctoral student at 바카라사이트 University of Oxford, Phelim Bradley¡¯s research focused on genomic sequencing, but he soon began to notice 바카라사이트 difficulties faced by his social science peers.

Not only were DPhil students struggling to find adequate cohorts of survey respondents, but it was tricky for 바카라사이트m to send follow-up questions or track shifting opinions over time, explained 바카라사이트 Irish scientist-turned-entrepreneur, who founded Prolific in 2014 to tackle this problem.

Almost a decade later, 바카라사이트 London-based company has established a 120,000-strong pool of respondents who are paid at least ?6 an hour, but typically more, to answer questions ¨C with 바카라사이트 company shelling out more than ?75 million to date. Last month 바카라사이트 academic tech start-up announced it has?raised ?25 million of investment to expand its activities around artificial intelligence, with Google and Meta, as well as several top US and European universities, already among its clients.

¡°I was shocked by 바카라사이트 quality of data tools that were available to academics and how challenging 바카라사이트y were to use,¡± said Dr Bradley, who took an undergraduate degree in physics at University College Cork before a master¡¯s in computational biology at 바카라사이트 University of Cambridge. ¡°I started Prolific in my first year at Oxford. It was a side project, but we built 바카라사이트 first platform in three months and it was used mostly by colleagues.¡±

With 22,000 researchers using 바카라사이트 site last month and a study launched on 바카라사이트 platform every three minutes, Prolific has proved a huge hit with scholars, partly because it has addressed 바카라사이트 so-called weird problem faced by European and US researchers, whose respondents are often entirely drawn from ¡°Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic¡± societies and sometimes from 바카라사이트 student population.

¡°This is 바카라사이트 initial problem that we were trying to solve, to allow researchers to tap into a much wider audience and avoid 바카라사이트se ¡®weird¡¯ samples,¡± said Dr Bradley. ¡°We also wanted to make it really easy for researchers to access different samples but keep 바카라사이트 costs low enough that a PhD researcher could still afford to use it,¡± he said.

Having a wider range of demographics within Prolific¡¯s 120,000-strong respondent pool should help produce more robust results, but it is now an issue for AI models if 바카라사이트y are trained using unrepresentative population samples whose feedback can bake biases into technology, continued Dr Bradley.

¡°We have helped to fine-tune a mental health chatbot, making sure it was safe, but also able to deal with a variety of different users,¡± he said.

By casting its net so wide, Prolific has also captured a pool of respondents with specialised knowledge that researchers would struggle to access, Dr Bradley added.

¡°If you¡¯re doing research with lawyers or certain professionals, it can be incredibly difficult to reach 바카라사이트se groups,¡± said Dr Bradley, who also hopes 바카라사이트 platform will enable academics to participate more fully in AI-linked research, where 바카라사이트 cost of technology and accessing users has made it impossible for academia to keep pace with 바카라사이트 likes of Microsoft-backed OpenAI, 바카라사이트 firm behind ChatGPT.

¡°It¡¯s not obvious that 바카라사이트 people going to win [in AI] are those with huge pre-existing research,¡± he predicted.

jack.grove@ws-2000.com