In an article for The New York Times, graduate student Yonah Freemark writes that making city streets safer can help protect pedestrians and cyclists from careless and malicious drivers. “The side effects of a pedestrian-focused strategy are overwhelmingly positive, even setting aside the lowered potential for death. Air quality improves, people exercise more, neighborhood business expands.”
WGBH’s Craig LeMoult reports on the future of work conference held at MIT this week, which examined how automation may impact the labor market. Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson explained that, “we're using technologies to augment not just our muscles but our brains, allowing us to control the world and make them figure things out more effectively.”
John Tirman, executive director of the MIT Center for International Studies, contributes to a HuffPost article regarding Kurdistan’s attempt to gain independence. Tirman writes that independence “is not only the right thing to do for the Kurdish people, but could provide several possibilities for a stabilizing U.S. presence in the region.”
Inside Higher Ed reporter Jean Dimeo writes that select MIT courses will be offered in Latin America. Dimeo explains that the courses will “be taught in Portuguese and Spanish, will be offered fully online with technology provided by Ilumno and with support from MIT teaching assistants.”
WHDH speaks with MIT staff member Maia Weinstock, who designed the original concept for the Women of NASA LEGO set. Weinstock explained that she is “really excited to see teachers and parents and kids tell me their stories of how they are going to use the set.”
Valentina Zarya writes for Fortune that MIT researchers have developed an AI system that can generate horror stories. The system, named Shelley, learned its craft by reading a Reddit forum containing stories from amateur horror writers. The bot, Shelley, also tweets a line for a new story every hour, encouraging Twitter users to continue the story.
Writing for HuffPost, Prof. Georgia Perakis explains that it is possible to detect customer trends without using data gathered via social media. By using data like store locations, customer demographics, and timing of purchases, “we can still understand the influence of certain individuals and groups,” Perakis explains.
MIT Media Lab researchers have created an AI program that can write horror stories in collaboration with humans via Twitter, reports David Wade for CBS Boston. “Over time, we are expecting her to learn more from the crowd, and to create even more scarier stories,” says postdoctoral associate Pinar Yanardag.
In a WBUR segment about how technology is increasingly being used to assist seniors and caregivers, Rachel Zimmerman highlights Rendever, an MIT spinout, and speaks with Prof. Paul Osterman, Prof. Dina Katabi and Dr. Joseph Coughlin about their work. Zimmerman explains that Coughlin believes “a mix of smart devices and other personal services,” will help people age well.
Associated Press reporter Matt O’Brien details how Media Lab researchers have developed a new system, dubbed Shelley, that can generate scary stories. O’Brien explains that, “Shelley's artificial neural network is generating its own stories, posting opening lines on Twitter, then taking turns with humans in collaborative storytelling.”
Nick Glass of CNN writes about the history of death masks and a new wave of masks developed by Prof. Neri Oxman, which were digitally designed without a human model. “The masks are mesmerizingly beautiful and translucent, filled with smoky whirls of color -- reds, oranges, greens and purples. They seem to evoke many things,” says Glass.
A paper from MIT researchers suggests that small towns will be more negatively impacted by automation than larger cities, writes Ari Gaskell for HuffPost. The researchers found that, “automation is more likely in roles with repetitive tasks playing a major part, and such lower skilled roles tend to be concentrated more in smaller towns than larger cities.”
MIT researchers have developed an artificial neural network that can generate horror stories by collaborating with people on Twitter, HuffPost reports. Pinar Yanardag, a postdoc at the Media Lab, explains that the system is, “creating really interesting and weird stories that have never really existed in the horror genre.”
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Senior Lecturer Robert Pozen writes about how to improve the bipartisan health care bill. Pozen writes that measures such as broadening the use of tax-advantaged accounts and encouraging the growth of interstate sales of health care policies should, “ensure the bill has a smoother journey through the legislative process.”
Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Scott Carlson speaks with Prof. Mitchel Resnick about his new book, which highlights the importance of kindergarten. Resnick explains that schools should create a more kindergarten-like environment for all students that enables “kids to follow their own ideas, to have their own agency, to make progress on problems and projects they really care about.”