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.”
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have used an AI model to develop a “new approach to finding money laundering on Bitcoin’s blockchain,” reports Andy Greenberg for Wired. “Rather than try to identify cryptocurrency wallets or clusters of addresses associated with criminal entities such as dark-web black markets, thieves, or scammers, the researchers collected patterns of bitcoin transactions that led from one of those known bad actors to a cryptocurrency exchange where dirty crypto might be cashed out,” explains Greenberg.
A new report by Principal Research Scientist Andrew McAfee explores the “implications of generative AI in economic growth, looking at everything from its possible effects on job skills and wages to how it may transform entire industries to its potential risks and pitfalls,” reports Sheryl Estrada for Fortune.
Researchers for MIT and Google are providing a free “Generative AI for Educators Course,” with the aim of helping middle and high school teachers use generative AI tools in the classroom. “MIT RAISE believes knowledge of generative AI is a key factor in creating a more equitable future for education,” says Cynthia Breazeal, director of MIT RAISE. “We’re thrilled to collaborate with Google to offer the Generative AI for Educators Course – providing middle and high school teachers with no-cost AI training. This course empowers educators to confidently integrate AI into their teaching, creating richer and more accessible learning experiences for all students.”
ShareAmerica reporter Lauren Monsen spotlights Prof. Dina Katabi for her work in advancing medicine with artificial intelligence. “Katabi develops AI tools to monitor patients’ breathing patterns, hear rate, sleep quality, and movements,” writes Monsen. “This data informs treatment for patients with diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Crohn’s, and ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), as well as Rett syndrome, a rare neurological disorder.”
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Parmy Olson spotlights a new study by MIT researchers that finds AI chatbots can be highly persuasive when reinforced with facts and could potentially be used to help tackle conspiracy theories. “The scientists invited more than 2,000 people who believed in different conspiracy theories to summarize their positions to a chatbot — powered by OpenAI’s latest publicly available language model — and briefly debate them with the bot,” Olson writes. “On average, participants subsequently described themselves as 20% less confident in the conspiracy theory; their views remained softened even two months later.”
Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, speaks with PRX’s On Shifting Ground podcast host Ray Suarez about the potential impacts of greater life expectancy. “You are going to see a lot more technology in old age,” says Coughlin. “Not simply to remind you to take your meds or take your blood pressure, but actually to enable you to stay in your home longer, to bring information to you, to make things more convenient.”
Writing for Forbes, Prof. Christian Catalini makes the case that when it comes to today’s digital infrastructure, from AI and robotics to financial services and digital marketplaces, “if the United States wants to continue to lead, it needs to create the right conditions for competition to thrive. Like in the early days of the internet, this starts with policymakers embracing and nurturing a novel architecture based on open protocols.”
Researchers at MIT have found that AI can “be remarkably persuasive when reinforced with facts,” reports Parmy Olson for Bloomberg. “The scientists invited more than 2,000 people who believed in different conspiracy theories to summarize their positions to a chatbot — powered by OpenAI’s latest publicly available language model — and briefly debate them with the bot,” explains Olson. “On average, participants subsequently described themselves as 20% less confident in the conspiracy theory; their views remained softened even two months later.”
Scientific American reporter Riis Williams explores how MIT researchers created “smart gloves” that have tactile sensors woven into the fabric to help teach piano and make other hands-on activities easier. “Hand-based movements like piano playing are normally really subjective and difficult to record and transfer,” explains graduate student Yiyue Luo. “But with these gloves we are actually able to track one person’s touch experience and share it with another person to improve their tactile learning process.”
MIT and Google are offering a free Generative AI for Educators course “designed to help middle and high school teachers learn how to use generative AI tools to personalize instruction, develop creative lessons and save time on administrative tasks,” reports Jack Kelly for Forbes.
Nature reporter Amanda Heidt speaks with postdoctoral researcher Tigist Tamir about her experience using generative AI with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. “Whether I’m reading, writing or just making to-do lists, it’s very difficult for me to figure out what I want to say. One thing that helps is to just do a brain dump and use AI to create a boiled-down version,” Tamir explains. She adds, “I feel fortunate that I’m in this era where these tools exist.”
Postdoc Xuhai Xu and his colleagues have developed an AI program that can distribute pop-up reminders to help limit smartphone screen time, reports Jeremy Hsu for New Scientist. Xu explains that “a random notification to stop doomscrolling won’t always tear someone away from their phone. But machine learning can personalize that intervention so it arrives at the moment when it is most likely to work,” writes Hsu.
U.S. News & World Report reporter Cole Claybourn spotlights Amar Gopal Bose '51, SM '52 ScD '56, a former MIT faculty member, as one of fifteen famous Fulbright scholars. Bose, founder of Bose Corporation, “studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a full scholarship, earning his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering,” writes Claybourn.
A new report by researchers from MIT and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has uncovered “how AI-based machine learning and predictive analytics are super-powering key performance indictors (KPIs),” reports Sheryl Estrada for Fortune. “I definitely see marketing, manufacturing, supply chain, and financial folks using these value-added formats to upgrade their existing KPIs and imagine new ones,” says visiting scholar Michael Schrage.