Research

A new study by researchers at MIT and elsewhere explores “children’s exploitation of language ‘loopholes’ — instances in which kids technically do what adults ask of them but completely violate the true intent of the request,” reports Charlotte Hu for Scientific American. “Sometimes you don’t want to cooperate, but it might feel risky to outright refuse,” explains former postdoc Sophie Bridgers. “We started to be curious about the strategies [kids] used to handle this tension.” 

Prof. Erik Demaine and his colleagues have solved a longstanding mathematical puzzle called “Dudeney’s dissection,” which involves dissecting an equilateral triangle into the smallest number of pieces that could be rearranged into a square, reports Lyndie Chiou for Scientific American. “Each of those pieces could have arbitrarily many edges to it, and the coordinates of those cuts start at arbitrary points,” says Demaine, of what makes the puzzle so challenging. “You have these continuous parameters where there’s lots and lots of infinities of possible choices that makes it so annoyingly hard. You can’t just brute-force it with a computer.”

A new study by researchers at MIT explores how AI chatbots can impact people’s feelings and mood, reports Matthew Gault for Gizmodo. “One of the big takeaways is that people who used the chatbots casually and didn’t engage with them emotionally didn’t report feeling lonelier at the end of the study,” explains Gault. “Yet, if a user said they were lonely before they started the study, they felt worse after it was over.”

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found that “heavy users of ChatGPT tend to be lonelier, more emotionally dependent on the AI tool and have fewer offline social relationships,” reports Rachel Hall for The Guardian. “The researchers wrote that the users who engaged in the most emotionally expressive personal conversations with the chatbots tended to experience higher loneliness – though it isn’t clear if this is caused by the chatbot or because lonely people are seeking emotional bonds,” explains Hall. 

Graduate student Cathy Fang speaks with CBS News reporter Lindsey Reiser about her research studying the effects of AI chatbots on people’s emotional well-being. Fang explains that she and her colleagues found that how the chatbot interacts with the user is important, “but also how the user interacts with the chatbot is equally important. Both influence the user’s emotional and social well-being.” She adds: “Overall, we found that extended use is correlated with more negative outcomes.”

MIT researchers have developed a method to grow artificial muscle tissue that twitches and flexes in multiple, coordinated directions, and could be useful for building “biohybrid” robots, reports Andrew Corselli for Tech Briefs. Prof. Ritu Raman explains that her lab is focused on creating “artificial muscle tissues that can be used to understand and treat muscle diseases that impact healthy human mobility,” and making “safe muscle-powered robots that can perform complex tasks in dangerous environments that are not suitable for humans.”

MIT researchers have developed a “simple way to administer long-acting drug delivery systems without the need for invasive procedures – an appealing prospect for parts of the world with poor medical infrastructure,” reports Nicola Davis for The Guardian. “It’s suitable for any poorly soluble hydrophobic drug, especially where long-acting delivery is needed,” says Prof. Giovanni Traverso, “This includes treatments for HIV, TB, schizophrenia, chronic pain, or metabolic disease​.” 

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found “that frequency chatbot users experience more loneliness and emotional dependence,” reports Beatrice Nolan for Fortune. “The studies set out to investigate the extent to which interactions with ChatGPT impacted users’ emotional health, with a focus on the use of the chatbot’s advanced voice mode,” explains Nolan. 

Forbes reporter Tanya Arturi highlights research by Prof. Basima Tewfik on the impact of imposter syndrome. Tewfik’s “studies indicate that the behaviors exhibited by individuals experiencing imposter thoughts (such as increased effort in communication and interpersonal interactions) can actually enhance job performance,” explains Arturi. “Instead of resisting their feelings of self-doubt, professionals who lean into these emotions may develop stronger interpersonal skills, outperforming their non-imposter peers in collaboration and teamwork.” 

MIT researchers have developed a new method to grow artificial muscles for soft robots that can move in multiple directions, mimicking the iris of an eye, reports Mrigakshi Dixit for Interesting Engineering. The researchers developed a new technique called “stamping” to create “an artificial iris-like structure,” Dixit explains. “For this, they 3D-printed a tiny stamp, patterned with microscopic grooves. This stamp is then pressed into a soft hydrogel to create a blueprint for muscle growth.”

A new study by Prof. Jackson Lu and graduate student Lu Doris Zhang finds that assertiveness is key to moving up the career ladder, and that debate training could help improve an individual’s chances of moving into a leadership role, reports Julia Pugachevsky for Business Insider. “If someone knows when to voice their opinions in a diplomatic and fruitful way, they will get more attention,” says Lu. 

Researchers at MIT have discovered how “greenhouse gases are impacting Earth’s upper atmosphere and, in turn, the objects orbiting within it,” reports Grace Snelling for Fast Company. “If we don’t take action to be more responsible for operating our satellites, the impact is that there are going to be entire regions of low Earth orbit that could become uninhabitable for a satellite,” says graduate student William Parker.

[Originally in Spanish] MIT researchers have developed a new technique to educate robots by increasing human input, reports Uriel Bederman for TN Tecno.  “We can’t expect non-technical people to collect data and fine-tune a neural network model," explains graduate student Felix Yanwei Wang. "Consumers will expect the robot to work right out of the box, and if it doesn’t, they’ll want an intuitive way to customize it. That’s the challenge we’re addressing in this work."

Prof. David Autor speaks with Financial Times reporter Tom Davis about the impact of dataism – the belief that through gathering increasing amounts of information businesses can make the right decisions and create value - and automation in business management. “You can think of automation as a machine that takes a job’s inputs and does it for the worker,” says Autor. “[And] augmentation as a technology that increases the variety of things that people can do, the quality of things people can do, or their productivity”.

Prof. Eric So speaks with Financial Times reporter Seb Murray about the use of AI in business programs. “I’ve seen a mixture of surprise, enthusiasm, concern and trepidation,” explains So. “It’s quite difficult to design assignments that can be done without AI. I suspect much of our curriculum will be redesigned from the ground up.”