Research

Undergraduate student Melody Chen, a former MIT Research Science Institute Scholar, has been named in the 2026 class of U.S. Presidential Scholars, writes Forbes’ Michael T. Nietzel. “This year’s group consists of 161 outstanding high school seniors, who were selected for their accomplishments in academics, the arts, and career and technical education fields as well as for commitments to community service and leadership,” notes Nietzel. “Being named a U.S. Presidential Scholar is considered one of the nation’s most prestigious academic awards for high school graduates.”  

A team of astronomers, including scientists from MIT, have developed Lumina, a complex computer simulation that “shows how the first galaxies, stars and other astral phenomena developed and evolved over the ensuing millennia,” reports Eric Lagatta for USA Today. “Lumina's simulations begin around 45 million years after the ‘Big Bang,’ when the universe is still ensconced in a cosmic dark age, as neutral hydrogen shrouded the universe, preventing light and other forms of radiation from traveling,” writes Lagatta. “The simulation covers a massive patch of the early universe, spanning about 1.6 billion light-years, as phenomena like dark matter, gas and stars form and grow.” 

MIT researchers have designed LUCID, a thin, flexible and implantable device “that pairs a slow-release drug reservoir with tiny ultrasound transducers, aiming to help prevent glioblastoma from coming back after surgery,” writes Munis Raza for Interesting Engineering. “The transducers generate ultrasound waves right at the tip of the needle, helping drug molecules diffuse farther into [brain] tissue after release,” notes Raza. “Doctors could implant the device during surgery and let it gradually release drugs to kill remaining tumor cells.” 

Prof. Eric Klopfer, co-chair of MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training, speaks with Newsweek’s Amanda Greenwood and Hollie Silverman about homework in an era of AI. “Students need experience to understand and regulate their AI behaviors,” says Klopfer. “They need to learn how it can augment, rather than replace, their learning, and decide how to use it.”  

Forbes reporter Marshall Shepherd highlights the Probabilistic Bias Correction tool, a new AI system developed by MIT researchers that could extend weather forecasting predictability beyond two weeks.  

Prof. Charles Stewart III, director of MIT’s Election Data and Science Lab, speaks to NPR’s “Morning Edition” about the surge in early voting among Americans in the midterm elections. The surge is reflecting “the enthusiasm of voters, but also, I think it has to be understood that a lot of this activity is also generated by the campaigns, getting out and motivating their voters to get to the polls or to return their mail-in-ballots,” says Stewart. “The political science research suggests that people who are voting early would have voted on Election Day had that mode not been available to them.” 

In an interview with The Boston Globe’s Rebecca Spiess, Prof. Eric So discusses how AI affects different areas of human cognition, as detailed in his new book “The Collision: What AI Does to Us.” “So many people these days are just really focused on the productivity benefits of AI and what it can do for us. I think what people really should be thinking about is what AI is doing to us in the immediate term,” says So. “AI is changing who we are as thinkers, right now, in our day-to-day lives; in classrooms; in households; in boardrooms across the globe.” 

Instead of giving AI agents a specific task, MIT researchers put 13 agents, named Eko, alone on a digital desert island for 30 hours, and witnessed the technology playing instead of simply wandering around, writes Fast Company’s Jude Cramer. “The researchers compared Eko’s behavior to common elements of play in animals, including humans,” notes Cramer. “These signs of play include creating their own rules, repeating behaviors with slight variations, setting goals for themselves, and transforming objects and events through make-believe.” 

After observing the behavior of 13 AI agents on a simulated desert island, MIT researchers suggest that allowing agents to explore “without a goal” could be an effective way to teach AI agents new skills, reports Aditya Mehta for TechCrunch. “We normally develop artificial agents by deciding in advance what they should practice, what they should optimize, and what counts as progress,” the researchers write. “Play suggests another regime: give an agent a sufficiently rich and safe world, let it choose what is interesting, and allow useful knowledge to accumulate from the history that follows.” 

Postdoctoral Associate Iman YeckehZaare speaks to El País reporter Jordi Pérez Colomé about his research on RentAHuman, a platform that allows AI agents to hire people to do physical labor. “RentAHuman has shown that many people are willing to sign up to be hired by AI agents. What it still hasn’t shown is that many AI agents are doing the hiring,” says YeckehZaare. “Listings posted by agents will increase as AI agents become capable of acting and paying on their own.”  

Prof. Charles Stewart III, director of MIT’s Election Data and Science Lab, speaks with Craig LeMoult during GBH’s “Morning Edition” about the electoral environment in Massachusetts. “I am somebody who thinks that activists tend to overestimate the importance and the effects of voting reforms,” says Stewart. “But having said that, I think that Massachusetts needs something to shake it up from the current electoral environment that it has.” 

In The Boston Globe’s “Starting Point Newsletter,” reporter Anna Kusmer features Prof. Sherry Turkle’s insights from her latest book “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines,” including the risks that AI companionship poses to school-aged children. “Children are bringing the world inside; they’re bringing the people around them inside them to create an inner life,” says Turkle. “And when you talk to a chatbot, there is nothing to bring inside. There is no caring person.” 

In an interview with Wired’s Steven Levy, Prof. Sherry Turkle discusses how she witnessed chatbots with human-like features becoming “dangerously enmeshed” with people, during research for her latest book “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.” “In every serious interview I do, people invoke this myth about practice—that you use chatbots to practice for talking to your boss, your lover, your teacher,” says Turkle. “But when you’re bathing in the warm soup of total acceptance, talking to chatbots becomes the endgame.” 

MIT researchers gave 13 AI agents, named Eko, free rein, on a simulated desert island for 30 hours, and observed as the agents played and learned from their surroundings like humans, writes Gizmodo’s Webb Wright. “We had this mindset to have as [few] constraints as possible, because we really wanted to see what the behavior of these autonomous agents is when you don’t really tell them what to do,” says graduate student Nathan Cloos. “Play is really about curiosity or novelty-seeking behavior, and this is essentially what Eko does,” Prof. Daniela Rus adds.  

Testing 1,000 synthetically generated client profiles against AI chatbots for investment advice, Prof. Andrew Lo and Research Affiliate Jillian Ross identified “heuristic collapse,” where chatbots based their recommendations almost entirely on self-reported risk tolerance, while ignoring income and other variables, writes Damilola Esebame for The Street. “Lo has recommended that investors use chatbots for orientation, leveraging them to frame questions, map out available options, and prepare for conversations with a human advisor rather than treating the output as a finished plan,” notes Esebame.