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Prof. Daron Acemoglu shares his insights on artificial intelligence and the future of work and education during “Ask an Economist,” a virtual event hosted by NPR’s “The Indicator from Planet Money.” “I think there are a lot of pro-teacher AI opportunities where you give better tools to teachers, but teachers still remain central to the learning experience of students,” says Acemoglu. AI “can individualize the teaching experience much more effectively and at low cost in a way that wasn't possible before. And that expands teacher expertise, expands teacher capabilities, enables them to perform new tasks, doesn't replace them, doesn't sideline them.” 

MIT researchers have “examined how improvements to existing transmission infrastructure could increase electricity delivery without relying entirely on expensive and time-consuming construction of new lines,” reports The Daily Tribune’s Carl Magadia. The researchers “examined three technologies: dynamic line ratings, which adjust power-line capacity based on real-time weather; advanced power flow controls, which redirect electricity away from congested lines; and topology optimization, which improves electricity distribution by reconfiguring grid connections,” notes Magadia.  

In an interview with Nature’s David Adam, Prof. Carlo Ratti discusses design elements he believes architects should focus on in the age of AI, emphasizing how citizens, not algorithms, should be the architects  of the future. “One important thing that AI can do is show us on a large scale where a city fails people. Combining the computer vision used to identify problems with public images gives us the chance to do something about them,” Ratti explains. He adds: “Many of the best ideas about cities have come from people disagreeing with one another in the same room—from cafes to council chambers. If algorithms learn what people like and simply give us more of it, or if software agents start negotiating with other agents on our behalf, we could lose those encounters.” 

Prof. John Hansman speaks to Scientific American reporter Peter Hall about the development of self-flying cargo planes. “We’ve been flying unmanned air vehicles, or drones, of reasonably large size,” for a while, says Hansman. “A small quadcopter drone doesn’t have to have the level of redundancy that a large vehicle that could hurt people on the ground or carry people needs.” However, “there will always be some level of human supervision,” even if the safety pilot is taken out of the cockpit in the years to come, Hansman adds.  

Visiting Scholar Ariel Ekblaw SM ’17, PhD ’20 speaks with CNN’s Amy Gunia about her work developing TESSERAE, a space architecture project involving magnetic, self-assembling tiles that could one day be used to create structures in space. “The tiles can be stacked on top of each other inside a rocket and released in space, where they can autonomously attach to each other—employing electro-permanent magnets, cameras and AI—to create a predetermined shape,” Gunia explains. The tiles “can self-assemble into something way bigger than the size of the rocket that they came up in,” Ekblaw shares, which could allow humans to build “science-fiction-worthy, big, grand structures” in space. 

Prof. Catherine Tucker and her colleagues published a report that reveals neighborhood disparities in access to and use of digital government services, writes Kaitlyn Levinson for Route Fifty. “Higher-income neighborhoods are more likely to submit multiple enforcement requests simultaneously via the app, leading to faster resolution when complaints are geographically concentrated and, consequently, to unequal neighborhood outcomes,” the report reads. “This underscores the need for policymakers to consider the broader social effects of digital civic tools and ensure they do not exacerbate existing inequalities.”  

Prof. Christopher Knittel joins the Climate One podcast to discuss energy policy and his research on the costs associated with homeowners implementing rooftop solar. “Rooftop solar is raising people's rates,” says Knittel. We should continue to “subsidize rooftop solar in a way that's not regressive, that is not leaning harder on those homes that cannot install solar.” Thinking about: “what is the best, most efficient, and [the] fairest way to make that [equity] happen.”  

CSAIL researchers have discovered that a large frontier AI model can, without any specialized training, understand and fine-tune another AI model’s capabilities, reports Fortune’s Jeremy Kah. The research “could be a big breakthrough in interpretability—our ability to understand the internal ‘thought’ processes of large language models,” writes Kah. “That’s critical because interpretability is one of the ways we are hoping to keep AI agents under human control.”   

Prof. Gary Gensler joins “Bloomberg Open Interest” to discuss what a change in the control of Congress could mean for financial regulation. “I think it will be a wide-ranging look at what the Trump administration has done to roll back protections for investors in our capital markets,” says Gensler. “Going further than [examining the shuttering of] the Consumer Protection Bureau, issues around housing and housing affordability I think are very much on Democrats’ minds. And then financial stability issues as well, whether it’s a close look at private credit and then what we might call the big AI trade—how everything is interconnected.”  

Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks to USA Today’s Doyle Rice and Dinah Voyles Pulver about the potential impacts of the sudden stratospheric warming (SSW), currently disrupting the polar vortex, that “could eventually lead to an outbreak of frigid air across much of the United States at some point over the next few months.” “Usually it takes two weeks (but recently it seems to take much longer) for the impacts of the SSW to impact our weather, so that puts it as early as late November but more likely in December and could even be delayed until January,” says Cohen. “The last El Niño in 2023-24 featured two SSWs and it was a very mild winter in the eastern U.S. and may have even been record mild. In short lots of uncertainty!” 

Forbes’ Amy Feldman spotlights Ossium, a startup that retrieves and cryopreserves bone marrow for use in life-saving procedures, co-founded by CEO Kevin Caldwell ‘08. “Ossium’s bone marrow has been used to treat blood cancer and, in one case, severe aplastic anemia, a rare and serious condition where the bone marrow stops making enough new red blood cells,” writes Feldman. “We want to make these blood and immune diseases a thing of the past,” says Caldwell.  

Los Angelos Times reporter Mark Swed spotlights Prof. Tod Machover’s “already and not yet,” a new symphony that “handles democracy not as a done deal, but a series of scary questions — and doesn’t trust the heartless machines for answers.” “Already and not yet” challenges us to make the world more beautiful by looking deeply into ourselves,” writes Swed. The orchestral score treats “musicians as creative artists and the audience as capable of opening its collective mind.”  

Forbes has named MIT Professional Education’s Applied AI for Digital Transformation as the best professional development course available, writes Doug Wintemute and Veronica Beagle. “Designed for senior executives and tech leaders, this course explores AI adoption frameworks and strategies. Upon completion, graduates receive 6.4 continuing education units (CEUs) and a certificate of completion from the renowned MIT Professional Education.”