MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

Boston Globe reporter Alexa Gagosz spotlights the work of Profs. Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, recipients of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics for their research examining global inequality. MIT President Sally Kornbluth called Acemoglu and Johnson, who first stepped foot on MIT’s campus in 1985 as a graduate student, “prolific and influential scholars” whose work “reflects a very MIT interest in making a positive impact in the real world.” Kornbluth added: “Their historical investigations have a great deal to teach us about how and why real societies fail or thrive. And they [have] both become familiar voices in the news, public intellectuals trying to help us all make sense of a tumultuous world.”

Profs. Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson PhD '89 have been awarded the 2024 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for their work explaining the gaps in prosperity between nations and advancing our understanding of inequality, reports Jeanna Smialek for The New York Times. “Reducing the huge differences in income between countries is one of our times’ greatest challenges,” said Jakob Svensson, chairman of the economics prize committee. Thanks to the economists’ “groundbreaking research,” he said, “we have a much deeper understanding of the root causes of why countries fail or succeed.” Acemoglu reacted to winning the prize, noting that: “You dream of having a good career, but this is over and on top of that.” 

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed “a new method of 3D printing that uses heat-responsive materials to print multi-color and multi-textured objects in one step,” reports Laura Griffiths for TCT Magazine. “The method has so far been tested using three heat-responsive filaments including a foaming polymer with particles that expand as they are heated, and wood and cork fiber-filled filaments,” explains Griffiths.  

Researchers at MIT have found that commercially available AI models, “were more likely to recommend calling police when shown Ring videos captured in minority communities,” reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “The study also found that, when analyzing footage from majority-white neighborhoods, the models were less likely to describe scenes using terms like ‘casing the property’ or ‘burglary tools,’” writes Wiggers. 

Researchers at MIT have developed GenSQL, a new generative AI system that can be used “to ease answering data science questions,” reports Allison Proffitt for Bio-It World. “Look how much better data science could be if it was easier to use,” says Research Scientist Mathieu Huot. “It’s not perfect yet, but we believe it’s quite an improvement over other options.” 

Researchers at MIT have found large language models “often struggle to handle more complex problems that require true understanding,” reports Kirimgeray Kirimli for Forbes. “This underscores the need for future versions of LLMs to go beyond just these basic, shared capabilities,” writes Kirimli. 

Researchers at MIT have developed a new method that “enables robots to intuitively identify relevant areas of a scene based on specific tasks,” reports Baba Tamim for Interesting Engineering. “The tech adopts a distinctive strategy to make robots effective and efficient at sorting a cluttered environment, such as finding a specific brand of mustard on a messy kitchen counter,” explains Tamim. 

Prof. Regina Barzilay has received the WebMD Health Heros award for her work developing a new system that uses AI to detect breast cancer up to 5 years earlier, reports WHDH. “We do have a right to know our risk and then we, together with our healthcare providers, need to manage them,” says Barzilay. 

MIT has been named the number 2 university in the nation on U.S. News & World Report’s annual list of the country’s top universities and colleges, reports Ross Cristantiello for Boston.com 

MIT has been named to the second spot in U.S News & World Report’s “Best National University Rankings,” reports Frank O’Laughlin for Boston 25 News.

MIT was named the number 2 university in the nation in U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking of the best colleges and universities in the country, reports Travis Andersen for The Boston Globe.

Writing for The Washington Post, Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, and Nico Enriquez, a graduate student at Stanford, make the case that the United States should not only be building more efficient AI software and better computer chips, but also creating “interstate-type corridors to transmit sufficient, reliable power to our data centers.” They emphasize: “The United States has the talent, investor base, corporations and research institutions to write the most advanced AI models. But without a powerful data highway system, our great technology advances will be confined to back roads.”

TechCrunch reporter Kyle Wiggers writes that MIT researchers have developed a new tool, called SigLLM, that uses large language models to flag problems in complex systems. In the future, SigLLM could be used to “help technicians flag potential problems in equipment like heavy machinery before they occur.” 

Research Scientist Mathieu Huot speaks with Tech Briefs reporter Andrew Corselli about his work with GenSQL, a generative AI system for databases that “could help users make predictions, detect anomalies, guess missing values, fix errors, or generate synthetic data with just a few keystrokes.”