In the Media

Prof. Asu Ozdaglar, head of EECS and deputy dean of academics for the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, speaks with Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace about how MIT is preparing its students for the era of AI by teaching foundational skills that will enable them to find jobs in a variety of different sectors. The new Artificial Intelligence + Decision Making major (AI+D) teaches students about the “foundations of how to use this intelligence for enhancing human experience, human work, human education, all of those domains, so that no matter how the technology changes, these students can adapt their skills to the new set of tools and developments.”

In an article for Forbes, Senior Lecturer Guadalupe Hayes-Mota '08 MS '16, MBA '16 explores how “AI is now embedded in the critical path of drug discovery, and it is making consequential decisions at a speed and scale that existing governance structures were simply not designed to handle.” Hayes-Mota emphasizes: “The goal is to ensure that as AI accelerates the machine of drug development, we have deliberate mechanisms for human accountability threaded through every critical junction.” 

A new study co-authored by Sloan graduate student Anand Shah explores the growing use of AI across the legal system, reports Chris Stokel-Walker for Fast Company. “The pro se share of all civil cases has been 11% for quite some time,” says Shah. “And then in the post-AI world, we see it jumping all the way up to something like 18%.”

Profs. Elisabeth Reynolds and Simon Johnson joined Tom Keene and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Surveillance to discuss their new book Priority Technologies: Ensuring U.S. Security and Shared Prosperity, which highlights six key areas where advances in technology can drive the U.S. economy and support national security. “Quantum is the next frontier and opens up billions of dollars of opportunity,” says Reynolds. “Not just for defense and encryption issues, but also across all sorts of applications in financial services and biopharma:” 

New research co-authored by Prof. Michiel Bakker examines the impact of using AI tools on an individual’s ability to solve a set of math problems, writes Jude Cramer for Fast Company. The researchers found that participants “who asked the AI for direct solutions saw the largest decline in solve rate and the largest increase in skip rate.” 

In an interview with CNN reporter Madeline Holcombe, Prof. Sherry Turkle shares her views on AI tools and companionship, and how AI chatbots can impact social connection and isolation. “Intimacy requires vulnerability — there is no intimacy without vulnerability,” says Turkle. “What AI offers is connection without vulnerability. You are not getting a sustaining form of intimacy and connection. You are getting a non-nourishing combination that may give the sense of a quick fix, but is not sustaining.” 

Prof. Regina Barzilay speaks with WBUR’s Priyanka Dayal McCluskey about her work developing an AI risk detection tool that can analyze mammogram images and help predict risk of breast cancer before it happens or spreads. Barzilay, who describes the tool as a hi-tech weather forecast for breast health, notes that: “We really need to have tools that can help, rather than just staring at an image and trying to guess.” 

New York Times reporter Melissa Kirsch spotlights a study by MIT scientists that explores how the “sound of rain causes some seeds to germinate faster.”

Sybil, a new AI tool developed by researchers from MIT and Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute, “analyzes a single CT scan and generates a risk score predicting the likelihood of developing lung cancer over a period of up to six years,” reports Ivan Rodriguez for WCVB-TV. “In 2023, researchers reported that Sybil achieved an accuracy rate of 86% to 94% in distinguishing high-risk patients from low-risk patients within a year.”

Donlyn Lyndon, a former MIT professor who also served as head of MIT’s Department of Architecture and was known for his work designing an icon of modern architecture on a bluff in Northern California, has died at age 90, reports Penelope Green for The New York Times. 

A new tool developed by MIT researchers could help violin designers test how an instrument might sound when certain dimensions or properties are changed without even pulling out a bow, reports Jennifer Ouellette for Ars Technica. The researchers crafted a virtual violin, “a computer simulation tool that can capture the precise physics of the instrument and even reproduce a realistic sound of a plucked string,” Ouellette explains. 

Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, speaks with NPR’s Allison Aubrey about his team’s work developing the Longevity Preparedness Index, which is aimed at helping people create a comprehensive plan for aging. “We want to look at all those big and little things that we take for granted in life," Coughlin says. "We may expect things won't change, but when a big life transition comes along — whether it's retiring from a profession, a death or unexpected sickness — many people have unintentionally ignored some of the very decisions that could help us thrive.” 

Cambridge Day reporter Zoe Beketova, a student in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, visits Prof. Xuanhe Zhao’s lab to get a hands-on look at the group’s ultrasound wristband that can map movements of the human body using sound waves, part of the group’s work aimed at changing “how we gather information from inside the body.” Says Zhao: “The mission of my lab is really merging humans with machines and AI. We believe there’s a huge opportunity [with] this interface.”

Forbes contributor Michael T. Nietzel spotlights the 120 new members and 25 international members elected by the National Academy of Sciences for 2026. Several MIT faculty members – including Professors Michale Fee, Gareth McKinley, Keith Nelson, Bengt Holmstrom and Catherine Wolfram – were selected. 

Prof. Kate Brown speaks with Zoe Matthews of GBH about growing interest in urban gardening. Matthews highlights Brown’s course about cooperative agriculture at MIT, during which “her students produced an accessible how-to guide on starting an urban farm.”