MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

On Friday, June 2, MIT celebrated the Class of 2023 with its undergraduate commencement ceremony, during which Chancellor Melissa Nobles addressed the graduates and students walked across the stage on Killian Court to receive their diplomas on a summer-like day. The Boston Herald featured a series of photographs from the event.

Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof. Aleksander Mądry join GBH’s Greater Boston to explore how AI can be regulated and safely integrated into our lives. “With much of our society driven by informational spaces — in particular social media and online media in general — AI and, in particular, generative AI accelerates a lot of problems like misinformation, spam, spear phishing and blackmail,” Mądry explains. Acemoglu adds that he feels AI reforms should be approached “more broadly so that AI researchers actually work in using these technologies in human-friendly ways, trying to make humans more empowered and more productive.”

Neil Thompson, director of the FutureTech research project at MIT CSAIL and a principal investigator MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, speaks with Politico reporter Mohar Chatterjee about generative AI, the pace of computer progress and the need for the U.S. to invest more in developing the future of computing. “We need to make sure we have good secure factories that can produce cutting-edge semiconductors,” says Thompson. “The CHIPS Act covers that. And people are starting to invest in some of these post-CMOS technologies — but it just needs to be much more. These are incredibly important technologies.”

Boston Globe columnist Thomas Farragher spotlights how researchers from MIT’s Haystack Observatory have built an “ice penetrator,” a device designed to help scientists study how sea ice is changing. Chris Eckert, a mechanical engineer at Haystack, explains, “Global warming is a real thing and we need a new class of instrumentation and measurements to truly understand it.”

The Economist spotlights how Boston Metal, an MIT startup, has developed a new process for creating steel that avoids producing greenhouse gas emissions. “Instead of releasing CO₂ or steam, its approach produces pure oxygen—which is not merely harmless, but actually valuable,” The Economist notes.

During his Commencement address at MIT, Mark Rober urged graduates to embrace their accomplishments and boldly face any challenges they encounter," writes Ashley Soebroto for The Boston Globe. Rober emphasized that “the degree you’re getting today means so much to you precisely because of all the struggle and setbacks that you’ve had to endure.” Elisa Becker-Foss, who graduated with a master’s in finance, noted that it was “very cool to be here, and after all the hard work to finally find one day to come together and celebrate.”

Researchers at MIT have found that lawyers “have an easier time remembering legal documents written in simple English over those filled with so-called legalese,” reports Ed Cara for Gizmodo. “On average, for instance, lawyers scored 45% on a test that asked them to recall documents written in legalese, compared to the average 38% scored by nonlawyers,” explains Cara. “But the lawyers’ score also increased to over 50% when they were given the simplified version.”  

Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with VOX Talks host Tim Phillips about his new book written with Prof. Simon Johnson, “Power and Progress.” The book explores “how we can redirect the path of innovation,” Phillips explains.

Boston Magazine reporter Rowan Jacobsen spotlights how MIT faculty, students and alumni are leading the charge in clean energy startups. “When it comes to game-changing breakthroughs in energy, three letters keep surfacing again and again: MIT,” writes Jacobsen.

On May 20^th, MIT students and community leaders gathered for “Hacking the Archive,” a hackathon aimed at addressing the wealth gap between Black and white residents of Boston, with a particular focus on housing as a generator of wealth, reports Kenneth Cooper for The Bay State Banner. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no bigger challenge than the racial wealth gap,” explained Prof. Karilyn Crockett.

MIT researchers have developed a new method to make chatbots more factual, reports Gerrit De Vynck for The Washington Post. “The researchers proposed using different chatbots to produce multiple answers to the same question and then letting them debate each other until one answer won out,” explains Vynck. “The researchers found using this ‘society of minds’ method made them more factual.”  

Prof. Jessika Trancik speaks with Popular Science reporter Charlotte Hu about the impact of electric vehicles on the environment. “There’s definitely a number of different modes of transport that need to be addressed and green modes of transport that need to be supported,” says Trancik. “We really need to be thinking holistically about all these ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Researchers from Lincoln Lab and NASA are working on the TROPICS research mission, an effort to collect meteorological data on tropical storms from mini satellites, reports Daniel Cusick for Scientific American. "Scientists will observe temperature profiles in space that would be favorable to storm formation at the Earth’s surface, then use a weather prediction model and radiometric imagery to better predict how such storms would behave," Cusick writes.