Newswise — Recently, students in the University of Washington’s Prosocial Computing group noticed a trend on social media. It’s about people using generative artificial intelligence to create short scientific videos. The problem is that these people are not scientists, and given that AI tends to be convincingly wrong, this could accelerate the spread of misinformation. So the lab wondered how scientists and other researchers could better adapt to platforms like TikTok.
“The other option is that the science is being told without scientists,” says co-lead author Mesaiah Ruby Cristobal, a University of California doctoral student majoring in human-centered design and engineering.
These discussions led the team to build PaperTok, an AI tool that helps users turn research papers into 45-second videos. When a researcher uploads a paper to the tool, Google Gemini is used to create a short script that explains the paper. Researchers can then iteratively edit the transcripts and resulting video clips.
The team presented their findings on April 17 at the Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Barcelona.
“Most people don’t read research papers for several reasons,” says lead author Gary Shea, a professor at the University of California who specializes in human-centered design and engineering. “Reading papers in unfamiliar fields is still a challenge, so we wanted to find a way to quickly convert papers into a format that the average person would want to work on. And we wanted to study how laypeople approach it.”
Currently, PaperTok is only accessible to users with a paid Google Gemini subscription. These users can access the PaperTok site and upload research papers. The system will then display four options to use as video hooks. For example, the PaperTok video about PaperTok itself begins, “Have you ever felt overwhelmed by reading a thick academic paper?”
“We started by interviewing eight science communicators and content producers about how to create engaging and reliable videos,” said co-lead author Donghoon Shin, a University of California doctoral student majoring in human-centered design and engineering. “We’ve found that hooks are essential for short-form videos. You’re competing with other videos online, and you only have a few seconds to grab someone’s attention.”
Once you select a hook, PaperTok generates a script that you can edit. During the storyboarding stage, the script is divided into scenes, similar to storyboarding a movie. Users can continue to refine the video clips that match the script. Once you are satisfied with the results, you can add a byline that will appear at the end along with the paper’s author.
The team asked 100 online participants and 18 academic participants to compare videos from PaperTok with videos from two other PDF-to-video generators. They found PaperTok easy to use and its videos were more engaging than videos from other systems. But some wanted to share it publicly because of signs of AI, such as meaningless text, because they thought it was “too AI-like” and could undermine the credibility of their scholarship.
The team plans to continue working on ways to customize AI-generated videos, such as allowing users to draw on specific parts of the scene and change elements according to their intent.
“The main motivation behind PaperTok was, ‘How can we enable researchers to create engaging short-form videos?'” Cristobal said. “With generative AI tools, anyone can generate a video from a PDF in minutes, which creates all kinds of problems, including misinformation and AI missteps. So we wanted to build a tool that keeps humans, ideally experts, involved. If anything, we want PaperTok to highlight how important humans are in science communication.”
Co-authors include: Hyun Jeong Byuna California State University doctoral student majoring in human-centered design and engineering. Tseyu Chen Dr. Boson AI. He contributed to this research as a master’s student at the University of Wisconsin. Ruoshi Xianga university doctoral candidate in human-centered design and engineering. Lui Kang Chonga California State University doctoral student majoring in human-centered design and engineering. and Tony Zhoua student at the University of California studying computer science. This research was supported by a Microsoft AI and New Future of Work Award, a Google PaliGemma Academic Program GCP Credit Award, and a National Science Foundation CISE Grade Fellowships.
For more information, please contact Hsieh. [email protected]Shinat [email protected] And Cristobal [email protected].
