MIT Intelligence Quest, a new Institute-wide initiative that will advance human and machine intelligence research, “will help connect researchers across disciplines and support projects in which they work together, as well as seek collaborations with industry,” writes Andy Rosen for The Boston Globe.
Prof. Josh Tenenbaum spoke with Bob Oakes on WBUR’s Morning Edition about MIT Intelligence Quest. “This is fundamentally about coupling the basic science of how intelligence works in the human mind and brain, with the quest to engineer new more powerful, more humanlike machines. And to do all of this in service of our mission to make a better world, with a longer-term vision that really only a university like MIT can have,” said Tenenbaum.
Writing for Forbes, Frederick Daso describes how MIT’s entrepreneurial ecosystem helped four students in the Sloan School of Management – Devin Basinger, Yishi Zuo, Derek Hans, and Nikhil Punwaney – launch their startup, DeepBench. MIT Sandbox, The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, and The Legatum Center at MIT are among those programs that “provided critical resources they needed to work.”
Jeff Engel writes for Xconomy about MIT’s ambitions for its newly announced Institute-wide initiative, MIT Intelligence Quest. “If we want A.I. breakthroughs, it’s going to take research in new science. That’s a central inspiration for MIT IQ,” said President Reif.
“The MIT Intelligence Quest or MIT IQ, based at an institution that has been at the forefront of artificial intelligence research since the 1950s, is a far-reaching academic effort to regain the initiative in AI,” writes Clive Cookson for The Financial Times.
In an article for the Financial Times, Robin Wigglesworth highlights Profs. Alberto Cavallo and Roberto Rigobon’s work with the Billion Prices Project. Wigglesworth notes that the project is an, “example of a broader trend of trawling the swelling sea of big data for clues on how companies, industries or entire economies are performing.”
Speaking to Bloomberg’s Emily Chang and Selina Wang, Lecturer Luis Perez-Breva suggests that fear of AI stems from confusing it with automation. Perez-Breva explains that in his view, “we need to make better businesses that actually use this technology and AI to take advantage of the automation and create new jobs.”
Using recent analyses by Prof. Frank Levy, Eduardo Porter of The New York Times explores the notion that AI will eliminate jobs and negatively impact American politics. Prof. Daron Acemoglu suggests that with more employment options in large cities, the backlash “will be more muted than it was when trade took out the jobs of single-industry company towns.”
Prof. Kevin Esvelt speaks with Scientific American reporter Elie Dolgin about his work applying genetic engineering to eradicate diseases like malaria. Esvelt explains that one day researchers could potentially, “engineer an organism that would confer disease resistance to an entire species. Ideally, we’d want to start small and local, see how well it works, and only then scale up if it’s warranted.”
Kaya Yurieff reports for CNN that CSAIL researchers have developed a system that allows the colors of 3-D printed objects to be altered after they have been fabricated. Prof. Stefanie Mueller explains that, “this sort of technology could help minimize the amount of waste that is produced from updating products."
TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater writes that MIT researchers have created a new system that allows users to change the color of 3-D printed objects. Heater explains that researchers, “are looking to bring color-changing properties to the 3D-printing process in an attempt to help reduce material waste.”
Marc Bain of Quartz reports that CSAIL researchers have created a system that changes the color of 3-D printed objects using UV light. The researchers hope this system will allow consumers to, “quickly match accessories to outfits, or let retail stores switch the color of clothing or other items on the spot for customers,” explains Bain.
CSAIL researchers have developed a method that allows the color of 3-D printed objects to change after they have been printed, writes Emily Matchar for Smithsonian. The method uses, “UV light to change the pixels on an object from transparent to colored, and then a regular office projector to turn them from colored to transparent,” explains Prof. Stefanie Mueller.
Wired reporter Arielle Pardes Gear writes that CSAIL researchers have developed a new system, called ColorFab, that makes it possible to change the color of 3-D printed objects after they have been created. ColorFab allows users to change an object’s color, “by returning to the ColorFab interface, selecting the areas to recolor, and then activating those areas with UV light.”
In a Wired article, Prof. Carlo Ratti writes about how responsive sensors can help reduce energy usage in buildings. Ratti explains that, “by pursuing a tailor-made, non-standardised approach we can achieve not only better comfort levels for building users, but also a substantial reduction in energy consumptions: between 25 per cent and 40 per cent.”