Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (eecs)

Researchers at MIT have created a noise-blocking sheet of silkworm silk that could “greatly streamline the pursuit of silence,” reports Andrew Chapman for Scientific American. “The silk sheet, which is enhanced with a special fiber, expands on a technology also found in noise-canceling headphones,” explains Chapman. “These devices create silence by sampling the ambient noise and then emitting sound waves that are out of phase with those in the environment. When the ambient and emitted waves overlap, they cancel each other out.” 

On NPR’s Short Wave, climate correspondent Lauren Sommer reports on MIT researchers using artificial intelligence to decode the secret language of sperm whales. Prof. Daniela Rus says, “it really turned out that sperm whale communication was indeed not random or simplistic but rather structured in a very complex, combinatorial manner.”

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed a new machine-learning model capable of “predicting a physical system’s phase or state,” report Kyle Wiggers and Devin Coldewey for TechCrunch. 

Researchers at CSAIL have created three “libraries of abstraction” – a collection of abstractions within natural language that highlight the importance of everyday words in providing context and better reasoning for large language models, reports Darren Orf for Popular Mechanics. “The researchers focused on household tasks and command-based video games, and developed a language model that proposes abstractions from a dataset,” explains Orf. “When implemented with existing LLM platforms, such as GPT-4, AI actions like ‘placing chilled wine in a cabinet' or ‘craft a bed’ (in the Minecraft sense) saw a big increase in task accuracy at 59 to 89 percent, respectively.”

Nature reporter Andrew Robinson reviews “The Heart and the Chip,” a new book by Prof. Daniela Rus and science writer Gregory Mone. The book “focuses on combining human and robotic strengths to pair ‘the heart and the chip’ in three interlinked fields: robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning,” explains Robinson. 

Forbes selects innovators for the list’s Healthcare & Science category, written by senior contributor Yue Wang. On the list is MIT PhD candidate Yuzhe Yang, who studies AI and machine learning technologies capability to monitor and diagnose illnesses such as Parkinson's disease.

MIT researchers have developed a new procedure that uses game theory to improve the accuracy and consistency of large language models (LLMs), reports Steve Nadis for Quanta Magazine. “The new work, which uses games to improve AI, stands in contrast to past approaches, which measured an AI program’s success via its mastery of games,” explains Nadis. 

MIT researchers have used advancements in machine learning and computing to help decode whale vocalizations, reports Sarah Kuta of Smithsonian Magazine. “If researchers knew what sperm whales were saying, they might be able to come up with more targeted approaches to protecting them,” Kuta explains. “In addition, drawing parallels between whales and humans via language might help engage the broader public in conservation efforts.”

A new analysis of years of vocalizations by sperm whales in the eastern Caribbean has provided a fuller understanding of how whales communicate using codas, reports Will Dunham of Reuters. Graduate student Pratyusha Sharma explained that: "The research shows that the expressivity of sperm whale calls is much larger than previously thought."

New Scientist reporter Clare Wilson writes that a new analysis by MIT researchers of thousands of exchanges made by east Caribbean sperm whales demonstrates a communication system more advanced than previously thought. “It’s really extraordinary to see the possibility of another species on this planet having the capacity for communication,” says Prof. Daniela Rus.

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have uncovered a phonetic alphabet used by sperm whales, which provides “key breakthroughs in our understanding of cetacean communication,” reports Brain Heater for TechCrunch. “This phonetic alphabet makes it possible to systematically explain the observed variability in the coda structure,” says Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL. “We believe that it’s possible that this is the first instance outside of human language where a communication provides an example of the linguistic concept of duality of patterning. That refers to a set of individually meaningless elements that can be combined to form larger meaningful units, sort of like combining syllables into words.”

Associated Press reporter Maria Cheng spotlights a new study by MIT researchers that identifies a “phonetic alphabet” used by whales when communicating. “It doesn’t appear that they have a fixed set of codas,” says graduate student Pratyusha Sharma. “That gives the whales access to a much larger communication system.” 

Using machine learning, MIT researchers have discovered that sperm whales use “a bigger lexicon of sound patterns” that indicates a far more complex communication style than previously thought, reports Lauren Sommers for NPR. “Our results show there is much more complexity than previously believed and this is challenging the current state of the art or state of beliefs about the animal world," says Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL. 

MIT researchers have discovered that sperm whales use a “much richer set of sounds than previously known, which they call a ‘sperm whale phonetic alphabet,’” reports Carl Zimmer for The New York Times. “The researchers identified 156 different codas, each with distinct combinations of tempo, rhythm, rubato and ornamentation,” Zimmer explains. “This variation is strikingly similar to the way humans combine movements in our lips and tongue to produce a set of phonetic sounds.”

Prof. Yoon Kim speaks with USA Today reporter Eve Chen about how AI can be used in everyday tasks such as travel planning. “AI is generally everywhere,” says Kim. “For example, when you search for something – let’s say you search for something on TripAdvisor, Hotels.com – there is likely an AI-based system that gives you a list of matches based on your query.”