Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)

Consisting of a headset and hand controllers, CSAIL's new VR system enables users to teleoperate a robot using an Oculus Rift headset.

Teleoperating robots with virtual reality

A virtual reality system from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory could make it easier for factory workers to telecommute.

October 11, 2017

MIT Professor Regina Barzilay, 2017 MacArthur Fellow, was cited by the MacArthur Foundation for making “significant contributions to a wide range of problems in computational linguistics, including both interpretation and generation of human language.”

Regina Barzilay wins MacArthur “genius grant”

MIT computer scientist who studies natural language processing and machine learning wins $625,000 prize.

October 11, 2017

A new system from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory works by analyzing light at the edge of walls, which is impacted by the reflections of objects around the corner from the camera.

An algorithm for your blind spot

Using smartphone cameras, system for seeing around corners could help with self-driving cars and search-and-rescue.

October 9, 2017

MIT doctoral student Michael B. Cohen ’14, SM ’16 (1992-2017)

Celebrating the life of doctoral student and alumnus Michael B. Cohen

Faculty, friends, and family pay tribute to an intellectually generous scholar.

October 5, 2017

A new machine-learning system analyzes successful repairs to buggy software and learns how to repair new bugs.

Bug-repair system learns from example

Automatic code-patching system corrects nearly twice as many errors as its predecessors.

September 28, 2017

Dubbed “Primer,” a new cube-shaped robot can be controlled via magnets to make it walk, roll, sail, and glide. It carries out these actions by wearing different exoskeletons, which start out as sheets of plastic that fold into specific shapes when heated. After Primer finishes its task, it can shed its “skin” by immersing itself in water, which dissolves the exoskeleton.

“Superhero” robot wears different outfits for different tasks

Shape-shifting device from CSAIL can walk, roll, sail, and glide using recyclable exoskeletons.

September 27, 2017

New leadership for MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab

Computer vision and machine learning expert Antonio Torralba to lead new artificial intelligence research lab.

September 20, 2017

Automatic code reuse

System makes modifications necessary to transplant code from one program into another.

September 19, 2017

A new method produces a printable structure that begins to fold itself up as soon as it’s peeled off the printing platform.

“Peel-and-go” printable structures fold themselves

Expanding polymer enables self-folding without heating or immersion in water.

September 13, 2017

Researchers will present a new general-purpose technique for making sense of neural networks trained to perform natural-language-processing tasks, in which computers attempt to interpret freeform texts written in ordinary, or natural language (as opposed to a programming language, for example).

How neural networks think

General-purpose technique sheds light on inner workings of neural nets trained to process language.

September 8, 2017

MIT President L. Rafael Reif, left, and John Kelly III, IBM senior vice president, Cognitive Solutions and Research, shake hands at the conclusion of a signing ceremony establishing the new MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab.

IBM and MIT to pursue joint research in artificial intelligence, establish new MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab

IBM plans to make a 10-year, $240 million investment in new lab with MIT to advance AI hardware, software, and algorithms.

September 7, 2017

Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of MIT’s School of Engineering, who negotiated the collaboration on behalf of MIT, speaks during the signing of the agreement with representatives of IBM.

3Q: Anantha Chandrakasan on new MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab

Lab seeks to expand the boundaries of research on artificial intelligence.

September 7, 2017

“The concept of my startup is, ‘Let’s use hacker tools to defeat hackers,’” PhD student Gregory Falco says. “If you don’t know how to break it, you don’t know how to fix it.”

Gregory Falco: Protecting urban infrastructure against cyberterrorism

PhD student works at the intersection of urban planning and computer science.

September 5, 2017

Researchers from CSAIL have devised a new system for data center caching that uses flash memory. In addition to costing less and consuming less power, a flash caching system could dramatically reduce the number of cache servers required by a data center.

Making data centers more energy efficient

Flash-memory system could reduce power consumption of data center “caches” by 90 percent.

August 30, 2017

ComText allows robots to understand contextual commands such as, “Pick up the box I put down.”

Robot learns to follow orders like Alexa

ComText, from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, allows robots to understand contextual commands.