Molly Wood at Marketplace speaks with Media Lab graduate student Joy Buolamwini about the findings of her recent research, which examined widespread bias in AI-supported facial recognition programs. “At the end of the day, data reflects our history, and our history has been very biased to date,” Buolamwini said.
EdX has witnessed growing interest in its MicroMasters certificates, which are “online, examined and graded, credit-eligible graduate-level courses that involve about a quarter of the coursework of a traditional Masters degree,” writes Adam Gordon of Forbes. As edX CEO Prof. Anant Agarwal explains, “Learning once and working for the next 30 years is obsolete; we need to move to a world where re-skilling becomes part of the culture.”
Professor John Gabrieli and graduate student Rachel Romeo speak with WBUR’s Carey Goldberg about their new research. "What we found is, the more often parents engaged in back-and-forth conversation with their child, the stronger was the brain response in the front of the brain to language," Gabrieli explains.
Writing for Gizmodo, Sidney Fussell explains that a new Media Lab study finds facial-recognition software is most accurate when identifying men with lighter skin and least accurate for women with darker skin. The software analyzed by graduate student Joy Buolamwini “misidentified the gender of dark-skinned females 35 percent of the time,” explains Fussell.
Co-founded by three alumni and a former professor, startup Ginkgo Bioworks uses genetic engineering to create an array of consumer and corporate products – all relying on socially conscious GMOs. The company, which is now partnering with Bayer, is “trying to reset the conversation around biotechnology: by foregrounding the benefits to consumers and advocating for transparency,” writes Sarah Zhang for The Atlantic.
CSAIL researchers have developed a new navigation method that allows drones to process less data, have faster reaction times, and dodge obstacles without creating a map of the environment they’re in, writes James Vincent of The Verge. “Because we’re not taking hundreds of measurements and fusing them together, it’s really fast,” said graduate student Peter Florence.
A study co-authored by MIT graduate student Joy Buolamwini finds that facial-recognition software is less accurate when identifying darker skin tones, especially those of women, writes Josh Horwitz of Quartz. According to the study, these errors could cause AI services to “treat individuals differently based on factors such as skin color or gender,” explains Horwitz.
A drone navigation system developed by CSAIL researchers doesn’t rely on intricate maps that show the location of obstacles, but adjusts for uncertainties, reports Martin Finucane of The Boston Globe. The system could be used in “in fields from search-and-rescue and defense to package delivery,” notes Finucane.
Natasha Singer of The New York Times writes about a joint course from MIT and Harvard to teach the ethics and regulation of artificial intelligence. “As we start to see things, like autonomous vehicles, that clearly have the ability to save people but also cause harm, I think that people are scrambling to build a system of ethics,” says Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab.
Scott Kirsner of The Boston Globe outlines the three factors that have created a strong foundation for local startups that are focused on buildings. He highlights MIT’s designX accelerator program as one factor that has helped “would-be student entrepreneurs explore ideas tied to the built environment, and to potentially launch for-profit companies or nonprofit organizations.”
Research Scientist Allan Adams discusses what gravitational waves reveal about the universe with Guy Raz of NPR’s TED Radio Hour. Adams explains that the detection of gravitational waves is important because they “allow us to see back in time and even unlock some of the mysteries of the origins of our universe.”
Prof. Junot Díaz spoke to students at the University of Missouri about how sexual violence and slavery is responsible for the mixing of races. “My work, among many of the things that it wrestles with, wrestles with the kind of, the often invisible and vigorously disavowed, long shadow of enslavement,” Díaz explains to Carolina Moren of Huffington Post.
CSAIL researchers have developed a mapping system for autonomous drones, writes Andrew Tarantola of Endgadet. Using depth-sensing technology to measure their immediate surroundings, the drone can “understand generally where it is in relation to obstacles and anticipate how it will need to change course to avoid them,” Tarantola explains.
New research shows that using volcanic ash in cement mixtures could enable “stronger and more environmentally friendly” construction in future cities, reports Sydney Periera for Newsweek. “There may be a tremendous implication of energy savings at the city scale,” Prof. Oral Büyükoztürk tells Periera.
MIT graduate student John Urschel describes the appeal of chess to HuffPost's Zach Young. "You might think someone who spends his days studying Laplacian eigenvectors would pick a hobby that’s a little more restful on the brain," writes Young. "But for Urschel, the appeal of math and the appeal of chess are very similar."