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Participants collaborate online to propose innovative solutions to tackle the Covid-19 outbreak at MIT HealthHACK.

Virtual hackathon unites international community to tackle Covid-19

University students and professionals connect online to find practical solutions to problems linked with the current pandemic.

May 13, 2020

New research by MIT economist Daron Acemoglu shows that since 1987, automation has taken away jobs from lower-skill workers without being replaced by an equivalent number of labor-market opportunities.

Study finds stronger links between automation and inequality

Job-replacing tech has directly driven the income gap since the late 1980s, economists report.

May 5, 2020

MIT researchers have proposed a technique for shrinking deep learning models that they say is simpler and produces more accurate results than state-of-the-art methods. It works by retraining the smaller, pruned model at its faster, initial learning rate.

A foolproof way to shrink deep learning models

Researchers unveil a pruning algorithm to make artificial intelligence applications run faster.

April 30, 2020

MIT researchers used machine learning to find entirely new algorithms for encoding exploration. Their machine-designed algorithms outperformed human-designed algorithms on the wide range of simulated tasks and environments shown here.

Automating the search for entirely new “curiosity” algorithms

Researchers show that computers can “write” algorithms that adapt to radically different environments better than algorithms designed by humans.

April 28, 2020

Mathai Mammen, head of R&D at the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, was the keynote speaker at the Jameel Clinic's AI Powered Drug Discovery and Manufacturing Conference in February.

MIT conference reveals the power of using artificial intelligence to discover new drugs

Inaugural AI Powered Drug Discovery and Manufacturing Conference drew pharmaceutical companies, government regulators, and pioneering drug researchers.

April 27, 2020

MIT researchers have developed a new automated AI system with improved computational efficiency and a much smaller carbon footprint. The researchers’ system trains one large neural network comprising many pretrained subnetworks of different sizes that can be tailored to diverse hardware platforms without retraining.

Reducing the carbon footprint of artificial intelligence

MIT system cuts the energy required for training and running neural networks.

April 23, 2020

Jim Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and the Department of Biological Engineering, is the recipient of funding from The Audacious Project to harness AI for drug discovery.

Jim Collins receives funding to harness AI for drug discovery

The Audacious Project commitment will support the development of new classes of antibiotics to treat the world’s deadliest bacterial pathogens.

April 22, 2020

In this lidar map, AI algorithms have identified roads (red). By pairing this map with OpenStreetMaps, users can plan routes around roads that are deemed impassable and can do so at the scale of an entire sortie, which here covers about 400 square miles.

With lidar and artificial intelligence, road status clears up after a disaster

Automated tools can help emergency managers make decisions, plan routes, and quantify road damage at city scales.

April 21, 2020

Daniela Rus is the director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), deputy dean of research for the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, and the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT.

Professor Daniela Rus named to White House science council

CSAIL director and MIT Schwarzman College of Computing deputy dean of research will serve on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

April 21, 2020

WiDS Cambridge, co-hosted by the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, recognized and empowered women in STEM across a variety of disciplines.

Annual Women in Data Science conference discusses fake news

WiDS Cambridge, co-hosted by the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, recognizes and empowers women in STEM across a variety of disciplines.

April 17, 2020

The startup Posh has created chat bots that use conversational memory to hold more natural conversations. Posh’s chat bots are currently used by about a dozen credit unions across a variety of voice and text platforms.

Deploying more conversational chatbots

Startup Posh has created chatbots that use “conversational memory” to have more natural exchanges.

April 17, 2020

(Left–right) Top row: Pelkins Ajanoh, Aurel Nagy, Mohamed Ismail. Middle row: Pooja Reddy, Connie Liu. Bottom row: Jason Wang, Riana Shah, Anthony Tabet, Jin Park, Sanath Devalpurkar.

Ten from MIT awarded 2020 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans

The $90,000 merit-based fellowship funds graduate studies for outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants.

April 14, 2020

MIT professor David Rand is a one-time punk rock guitarist whose academic research digs into psychology, cooperation, and politics. “To me, the essence of punk rock is saying, ‘Let me think about this for myself,’” Rand says. “Let me not be bound by social norms and conventions. … That’s what I try to do in my research. It’s the punk-rock approach to social science.”

Playing a new tune

Meet Professor David Rand, a one-time punk rock guitarist who now digs into psychology, cooperation, and politics.

April 11, 2020

A mural of hopes and questions about artificial intelligence from a middle school workshop

Learning about artificial intelligence: A hub of MIT resources for K-12 students

New website offers a combination of learning units, hands-on activities, and mentor guides to foster AI literacy.

April 7, 2020

Left to right: Department of Mathematics Professor Alan Edelman, his co-instructor and family Corgi Philip, and visiting professor and longtime Julia lab collaborator David Sanders have altered their computational thinking course to encourage input on COVID-19 responses.

Computational thinking class enables students to engage in Covid-19 response

Nearly 300 students join an open course that applies data science, artificial intelligence, and mathematical modeling using the Julia language to study Covid-19.