Researchers at MIT have developed a new method for “training home robots in simulation,” reports Brain Heater for TechCrunch. “Simulation has become a bedrock element of robot training in recent decades,” explains Heater. “It allows robots to try and fail at tasks thousands — or even millions — of times in the same amount of time it would take to do it once in the real world.”
Prof. Li-Huei Tsai, director of the Picower Institute, speaks with NPR host Jon Hamilton about her work identifying a protein called reelin that appears to protect brain cells from Alzheimer's. “Tsai says she and her team are now using artificial intelligence to help find a drug that can replicate what reelin does naturally,” says Hamilton.
Forbes reporter Rodger Dean Duncan spotlights “The Skill Code: How to Save Human Ability in an Age of Intelligent Machines,” a new book by Research Affiliate Matt Bean SM '14, PhD '17. Duncan “explains Beane’s take on AI tools, collaboration and remote work, who suggests traditional mentoring is at risk in the workplace. Beane says today’s successful people have ‘discovered new tactics that others can use to get skills without throwing out the benefits of hybrid working arrangements.’”
Prof. Stuart Madnick speaks with CNN reporter Allison Morrow about cybersecurity concerns stemming from the recent global technology outage. “There are organizations that we’re heavily dependent upon that we don’t even realize how dependent we are until they stop functioning,” says Madnick.
Joesph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, speaks with Atlantic reporter Charley Locke about how retirement can result in feelings of identity loss and can present cognitive and emotional health challenges. “When people are at the center of their universe through their job, we don’t have a storyline or a place in our society that is attractive enough to say, ‘Maybe I’ve had enough,’” says Coughlin. “You’re showing people the door with no direction.”
Research affiliate Thomas Neff, a physicist known for his proposal aimed at “reducing the global stockpile of nuclear weapons and helping stabilize the former Soviet Union,” has died at age 80, reports Harrison Smith for the Washington Post. Credited with the “Megatons to Megawatts” agreement, “Dr. Neff spent years working in arms control, nuclear weapons proliferation and uranium markets, bridging the divide between experts who specialized in the kind of highly enriched uranium used for warheads and the far less enriched version used for electricity generation,” Smith writes.
Research affiliate Thomas Neff, a physicist whose work with nuclear weapon conversion led to an agreement “that reduced nuclear threats and produced one of the greatest peace dividends of all time,” has died at the age of 80, reports William J. Broad for The New York Times. Neff’s idea of converting Soviet nuclear weapons into electricity used to power American cities “turned some 20,000 Russian nuclear arms into electricity, lighting billions of American lightbulbs.”
The MIT Summer Philharmonic Orchestra is celebrating its 25th anniversary season with a new concert, “Celebrating Milestones of Excellence,” reports Emily Wyrwa for The Boston Globe. The concert will be led by “music director and conductor George Ogata, the performance will feature music from Mexican composer Arturo Márquez, Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera, and Italian composer. Ottorino Respighi,” explains Wyrwa.
Prof. R. Scott Kemp and Principal Research Scientist Charles Forsberg speak with Verge reporter Justine Calma about the nuclear proliferation concerns raised by the higher concentrations of uranium used in next-generation nuclear reactors. “We need to make sure that we don’t get in front of ourselves here and make sure that all the security and safety provisions are in place first before we go off and start sending [high-assay low-enriched uranium] all around the country,” says Kemp.
A new working paper by Prof. Anna Stansbury and Research Associate Kyra Rodriguez looks at the “class gap” among US Ph.D.-holders in science, social science, engineering and health, reports Soumaya Keynes for the Financial Times. The paper found “those whose parents did not have a college degree are 13 per cent less likely to end up with tenure at a top university than those with more educated parents. They also tend to end up at lower-ranked institutions,” Keynes explains.
Prof. Stuart Madnick speaks with Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray about how the CrowdStrike update caused a global IT outage. Madnick “expects the hits to keep on coming because so many companies depend on certain IT vendors,” writes Bray. “This is happening more and more often, and the consequences are even larger and larger,” cautions Madnick.
Writing for The New York Times, Prof. Daron Acemoglu and University of Chicago Prof. James A. Robinson propose solutions to address growing distrust in democracy. “We need a new democratic social contract that people can believe in,” they write. “Democracy does not need to follow a majoritarian opinion on every topic, but it cannot sideline the views of the majority of the population, even on divisive subjects such as immigration.”
Researchers from the Data Provenance Initiative, a research group led by MIT engineers, have found that “important web sources used for training AI models have restricted the use of their data,” reports Kevin Roose for The New York Times. “We’re seeing a rapid decline in consent to use data across the web that will have ramifications not just for A.I. companies, but for researchers, academics and noncommercial entities,” explains graduate student Shayne Longpre.
Prof. Charles Harvey is among the scientists who “warn that [carbon] removal technologies aren’t sophisticated enough nor coming online fast enough to reduce emissions to the level we need them to,” reports Tristram Korten for Fast Company.
In an interview with The New York Times, Prof. Susan Solomon speaks about her latest book “Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do it Again,” which offers learnings from past environmental fights to affect future change. “People need to have some hope. We imagine that we never solve anything…but it’s really important to go back and look at how much we succeeded in the past and what are the common threads of those successes,” Solomon says.