Prof. Tod Machover joins GBH’s The Culture Show to discuss artificial intelligence in music, from exciting new tools to debates about licensing. Speaking with host Jared Bowen, he says “the field is changing so fast right now, it’s so important to keep up and also to decide how to influence it, because we’re trying to push this towards a positive end.”
Prof. Susan Solomon speaks with Times Higher Education reporter Matthew Reisz about her work “researching, teaching and communicating climate science while also leading seemingly endless international environmental negotiations.” Solomon recently published a new book, “Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again,” in which she outlines her “hope for the planet.” Says Solomon: “We are in a world bursting with change. So it’s a perfect time to be a climate scientist and study all those things.”
Boston Globe reporter Janelle Nanos visits The Engine Accelerator to learn more about their focus on providing tough tech startups with lab spaces and equipment. “We created this sort of ecosystem with support resources,” says Knight of the inspiration for the Engine Accelerator. “Where we are today was born out of those early needs, interviewing all these scientists and technologists, that were willing to work in a shared faculty but had different needs than existed.”
Researchers at MIT have designed an “AI-powered chatbot that simulates a user’s older self and dishes out observations and pearls of wisdom,” reports Ian Sample for The Guardian. “The goal is to promote long-term thinking and behavior change,” says graduate student Pat Pataranutaporn. “This could motivate people to make wiser choices in the present that optimize for their long-term wellbeing and life outcomes.”
New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall spotlights recent research by Profs. Daron Acemoglu, David Autor and Simon Johnson, in which they explore whether artificial intelligence could be a beneficial tool for workers. “It is quite possible to leverage generative AI as an informational tool that enables various different types of workers to get better at their jobs and perform more complex tasks,” explains Acemoglu. However, he notes “to turn generative AI pro-worker, we need a major course correction.”
TechCrunch’s Tim De Chant has a look at MIT spinoff SiTration, which has developed a new process to reat mining wastewater and filter our critical minerals using silicon. “SiTration’s filters are built on the same style of wafers that are used to make computer chips and solar panels, though using a cheaper grade of silicon,” De Chant explains.
Conner Galloway SB '08 SM '09 and Alexander Valys SB '08 lead Xcimer Energy Company, a startup seeking to provide economical nuclear fusion power and “pursuing what’s best described as a ground-up redesign of the underlying technology,” writes Tim De Chant for TechCrunch. “This is proven science,” Galloway, the CEO of Xcimer CEO, explains. “It’s just a matter of building a big enough laser, cheap enough laser and efficient enough laser.”
Richard Nieva reports on recent newcomers to Forbes’ 2024 Midas List, which features the magazine’s picks for the world’s best capital investors. Wesley Chan SB '00 SM '01 spent 14 years at Google, which “informed his focus on consumer tech startups,” Nieva writes.
Forbes reporter Michael Bernick spotlights Ultranauts, founded by Rajesh Anandan ’95 SM ‘96 and Art Shectman ‘95, which provides software testing services, quality engineering and test automation, data governance, and a recently launched suite of AI products to improve employee performance. The company employees people in 30 states, “75% of whom are neurodivergent.”
Researchers from MIT have discovered that integrating “Texas’ self-contained electrical grid with the broader national grid could prevent mass power outages,” reports Zack Budryk for The Hill. The researchers “modeled the effects of a bill introduced by Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) that would connect the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to the rest of the country,” explains Budryk. “They determined that if such a law had been enacted ahead of the 2021 event, Winter Storm Uri, up to 80 percent of the millions of blackouts caused by the storm could have been averted.”
Reporting in Portuguese, Correio Braziliense highlights researchers at MIT who have developed a new technique that uses light stimuli to benefit people with paralysis or amputations. “Our work could help bring the use of optogenetics closer to humans in the realm of neuroprosthetics that control paralyzed muscles and other functions of the peripheral nervous system,” says graduate student Guillermo Herrera-Arcos.
A new proposal aims to transform Massachusetts into “a new leader in climate and environment technology,” with the help with MIT and other Massachusetts-based universities, reports Julia Jacobo for ABC News. “The foundations for seeing environmental initiatives from their inception to public market have long existed in Massachusetts, home to some of the most prestigious research institutions and scientific discoveries in the world, as well as existing infrastructure that allows production to be achieved much faster, according to experts in the state.”
Researchers from the MIT Climate Policy Center have shown increasing shared transmission reduces outage risk, writes Sara Dinatale for the Star-Telegram. The researchers found connecting the Texas power grid to neighboring systems could have reduced blackouts during Winter Storm Uri in 2021. “What we're trying to do is provide policymakers with data," explains Prof. Christopher Knittel. “We just want policymakers to know what the trade-offs are from interconnecting or not interconnecting. And hopefully they can make a better decision.”
Sloan Lecturer Shira Springer’s essay in Sports Business Journal makes the case for “investment in sports tech designed and developed with female athletes in mind.” Springer adds: “with fewer resources across the board in women’s sports, with all the gaps to close, sports tech can do more for women’s sports.”
Prof. Albert Saiz speaks with USA Today reporter Bailey Schulz about the growing popularity of build-to-rent communities. With the U.S. estimated to be short anywhere between 1 million and 7 million single-family homes, depending on the source, “more housing is always better,” Saiz notes. He adds: “If you did not have this built-to-rent outlet for development, you wouldn't have these developments happen.”