Mashable visits CSAIL graduate student Gregory Xie to learn about his work with Auxbots, a system of untethered modular robots. “Together in a large assembly,” Xie explains, “we can get very interesting large scale motions of the assembly. These robots are more modular because they’re untethered and the actuation is completely electromechanical.”
Joy Buolamwini PhD ’22 has been named one of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education’s Top Women for 2023 for her work in developing “more equitable and accountable technology.” Buolamwini “uncovered racial and gender bias in AI services from high profile companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Amazon. Now a sought-after international speaker, Buolamwini continues to advocate for algorithmic justice,” writes Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.
Dean Daniel Huttenlocher joins CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” to discuss the current state of AI and how generative AI advances could impact our future. “These recent advances in generative AI technology really do represent a completely different capability in computing than anything we have experienced,” says Huttenlocher. “This is the first tech that can create humanlike expression.”
A new report co-authored by MIT researchers finds that the “US lead in advanced computing has declined significantly over the past five years—especially when measured against China,” writes Will Knight for Wired. The report’s authors emphasize that the US “needs to make sure that the CHIPS Act spending reflects the importance of developing novel ideas in advanced computing, as opposed to just propping up existing technologies,” Knight notes.
Postdoc Zach Patterson speaks with Mashable about how he and his colleagues are developing a soft robot inspired by a sea turtle that could potentially "offer a closer look at ocean life and assist in further studying aquatic creatures.” Patterson explains that the robotic turtle is meant to be a “platform for exploring the interaction between soft and rigid materials incorporated into a robotic structure.”
Prof. Hari Balakrishnan has been selected as the recipient of the Marconi Prize for “fundamental discoveries in wired and wireless networking, mobile sensing, and distributed systems,” reports the Press Trust of India. “The Marconi Prize is awarded annually by The Marconi Society to innovators who have significantly contributed to increasing digital inclusivity through advanced information and communications technology.”
Graduate student Ziv Epstein speaks with Vice reporter Rachel Cheung about the legal implications of the development and use of AI tools being used to create art. “We need more both technical and social research, understanding how these things work, how people feel about them, and then we can make those decisions based on good science,” Epstein said. “Because right now, we’re just really at the brink of the beginning.”
Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, speaks with Scientific American reporter Nora Bradford about recent advancements in the field of soft robotics. “Building soft robots that can work, heal and grow independently could change many areas of human life,” says Rus. “Soft robot hands are enabling a new age for manufacturing.”
Motherboard reporter Tatyana Woodall writes that a new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that AI models that can learn to perform new tasks from just a few examples create smaller models inside themselves to achieve these new tasks. “Learning is entangled with [existing] knowledge,” graduate student Ekin Akyürek explains. “We show that it is possible for these models to learn from examples on the fly without any parameter update we apply to the model.”
Researchers at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have developed “Sybil” – an artificial intelligence tool that can predict the risk of a patient developing lung cancer within six years, reports Mallika Marshall for CBS Boston.
Researchers at MIT have developed an autonomous vehicle with “mini sensors to allow it to see the world and also with an artificially intelligent computer brain that can allow it to drive,” explains postdoctoral associate Alexander Amini in an interview with Mashable. “Our autonomous vehicles are able to learn directly from humans how to drive a car so they can be deployed and interact in brand new environments that they’ve never seen before,” Amini notes.
MIT researchers have developed a new AI tool called Sybil that could help predict whether a patient will get lung cancer up to six years in advance, reports Pranshu Verma for The Washington Post. “Much of the technology involves analyzing large troves of medical scans, data sets or images, then feeding them into complex artificial intelligence software,” Verma explains. “From there, computers are trained to spot images of tumors or other abnormalities.”
National Geographic reporter Maya Wei-Haas explores how the ancient art of origami is being applied to fields such a robotics, medicine and space exploration. Wei-Haas notes that Prof. Daniela Rus and her team developed a robot that can fold to fit inside a pill capsule, while Prof. Erik Demaine has designed complex, curving fold patterns. “You get these really impressive 3D forms with very simple creasing,” says Demaine.
NBC 1st Look host Chelsea Cabarcas visits MIT to learn more about how faculty, researchers and students are “pioneering the world of tomorrow.” Cabarcas meets the MIT Solar Electric Vehicle team and gets a peek at Nimbus, the single-occupant vehicle that team members raced in the American Solar Challenge from Kansas City to New Mexico. Cabarcas also sees the back-flipping MIT mini cheetah that could one day be used in disaster-relief operations.
Graduate student Matthew Groh discusses Detect Fakes, a research project he co-created aimed at teaching people how to detect deepfakes, with Wall Street Journal reporter Ann-Marie Alcántara. Groh recommends people pay attention to the context of an image or video, noting that people can “pay attention to incentives and what someone is saying and why someone might be saying this.”