Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) student Sarah Cen remembers the lecture that sent her down the track to an upstream question. At a talk on ethical artificial intelligence, the speaker brought up a variation on the famous trolley problem,...
From “Star Wars” to “Happy Feet,” many beloved films contain scenes that were made possible by motion capture technology, which records movement of objects or people through video. Further, applications for this tracking, which involve complicated interactions...
On Monday, MIT announced five multiyear flagship projects in the first-ever Climate Grand Challenges, a new initiative to tackle complex climate problems and deliver breakthrough solutions to the world as quickly as possible. This article is the first in a...
As she was looking for a camp last summer, Yabesra Ewnetu, who’d just finished eighth grade, found a reference to MIT’s FutureMakers Create-a-thon. Ewnetu had heard that it’s hard to detect bias in artificial intelligence because AI algorithms are so complex,...
When we think of climate change, one of the most dramatic images that comes to mind is the loss of glacial ice. As the Earth warms, these enormous rivers of ice become a casualty of the rising temperatures. But, as ice sheets retreat, they also become an...
Growing up in Spain’s Catalonia region, Alberto Rodriguez loved taking things apart and putting them back together. But it wasn’t until he joined a robotics lab his last year in college that he realized robotics, and not mathematics or physics, would be his...
Which companies deploy machine intelligence (MI) and data analytics successfully for manufacturing and operations? Why are those leading adopters so far ahead — and what can others learn from them? MIT Machine Intelligence for Manufacturing and Operations...
Understanding the broader societal context of technology is becoming ever more critical as advances in computing show no signs of slowing. As students code, experiment, and build systems, being able to ask questions and make sense of hard problems involving...
When it comes to treatment strategies for critically ill patients, clinicians want to be able to consider all their options and timing of administration, and make the optimal decision for their patients. While clinician experience and study has helped them to...
At just one year old, a baby is more dexterous than a robot. Sure, machines can do more than just pick up and put down objects, but we’re not quite there as far as replicating a natural pull toward exploratory or sophisticated dexterous manipulation goes. ...
In the 1960s, the advent of computer-aided design (CAD) sparked a revolution in design. For his PhD thesis in 1963, MIT Professor Ivan Sutherland developed Sketchpad, a game-changing software program that enabled users to draw, move, and resize shapes on a...
While standing in a kitchen, you push some metal bowls across the counter into the sink with a clang, and drape a towel over the back of a chair. In another room, it sounds like some precariously stacked wooden blocks fell over, and there’s an epic toy car...
