Fast Company reporter Jesus Diaz writes that CSAIL researchers have developed a new technique to replicate works of art. Diaz explains that the system “uses a combination of 10 different transparent inks, placed by a 3D printer and governed by a complex AI system that decides how to layer and mix those inks to match a painting’s original colors.”
BBC News reporter David Robson writes that MIT researchers have devised a simple test to help determine whether you are communicating with a chatbot or a human. Robson writes that the findings suggest “knowingly flouting a taboo and provoking, rather than simply describing, an emotion might be the most straightforward way of conveying your shared humanity.”
Speaking with Mark Jannot of The New York Times Magazine, Prof. Regina Barzilay explores how A.I. could be used to predict risk of certain diseases. “Imagine how it can change the game if these diseases, which are now diagnosed late, when they are largely uncurable, could be detected early — how many lives can be saved,” says Barzilay.
Chronicle highlights MIT startup Spyce, a restaurant with a robotic kitchen. At Spyce, the flames used to heat a wok “are replaced with induction metal,” explains Erika Tarantal. “The robot-controlled rotation ensures cooking on all sides.”
Writing for The Conversation, Prof. Tauhid Zaman discusses his research showing how a small number of very active social media bots can have a significant impact on public opinion. Zaman notes that his findings are “a reminder to be careful about what you read – and what you believe – on social media.”
Smithsonian reporter Randy Rieland writes that MIT researchers have developed a machine learning model that can detect speech and language patterns associated with depression. The researchers note that the system is intended to assist, not replace clinicians. “We’re hopeful we can provide a complementary form of analysis,” explains Senior Research Scientist James Glass.
Boston Globe reporter Katie Johnston speaks with several MIT researchers about their work developing technology that is aimed at improving collaboration between humans and robots. Prof. Julie Shah notes that offloading easier decisions onto a machine “would allow people to focus on the parts of job that truly require human judgment and experience.”
Motherboard reporter Daniel Oberhaus writes that MIT researchers have developed an AI system that can generate theories about the physical laws of imaginary universes. Oberhaus writes that in the future the system could be used to help understand “massively complex datasets, such as those used in climate modeling or economics.”
Katharine Schwab of Fast Company writes about the Media Lab’s Moral Machine project, which surveyed people about their feelings on the ethical dilemmas posed by driverless vehicles. Because the results vary based on region and economic inequality, the researchers believe “self-driving car makers and politicians will need to take all of these variations into account when formulating decision-making systems and building regulations,” Schwab notes.
MIT researchers have developed a language translation model that operates without human annotations and guidance, reports Liangyu for Xinhua news agency. The system, which may enable computer-based translations of the thousands of languages spoken worldwide, is “a step toward one of the major goals of machine translation, which is fully unsupervised word alignment,” Liangyu explains.
Graduate students Ziv Epstein and Matt Groh have developed an AI system that adds spooky figures to photos, reports Mark Wilson for Fast Company. Wilson writes that the system “works so well because it places ghostly figures exactly where your brain naturally thinks they could be–on a path in the middle of a forest, rather than, say, floating randomly through the air.”
BBC News highlights how Media Lab researchers have built a software program that allows web users to suggest actions for a hired actor to perform. Researchers are “keen to see whether internet users can work together to issue a consistent series of commands to the actor that help complete the game, or whether the commands will be discordant.”
Lucas Laursen writes for Fortune that a global survey created by MIT researchers uncovered different regional attitudes about how autonomous vehicles should handle unavoidable collisions. Global carmakers, Laursen writes, “will need to use the findings at the very least to adapt how they sell their increasingly autonomous cars, if not how the cars actually operate.”
MIT researchers created an online game to determine how people around the world think autonomous vehicles should handle moral dilemmas, reports Laurel Wamsley for NPR. “Before we allow our cars to make ethical decisions, we need to have a global conversation to express our preferences to the companies that will design moral algorithms,” the researchers explain, “and to the policymakers that will regulate them.”
BBC News reporter Chris Fox writes that MIT researchers surveyed people about how an autonomous vehicle should operate when presented with different ethical dilemmas. Fox explains that the researchers hope their findings will “spark a ‘global conversation’ about the moral decisions self-driving vehicles will have to make.”