Bloomberg News reporter Amanda Gordon writes about the three-day event for the new MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. “MIT is going to be the anchor of what we will know in society as public interest technology,” said Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, during a panel discussion on considering the social impacts of AI.
Diane Greene SM ’78, a life member of the MIT Corporation, speaks with Becky Quick of CNBC about the future of AI. Greene explains that companies can now combine data with computational power, so that an “algorithm can learn from the data. Once you start doing that you start getting insights you’ve never gotten before that can leapfrog what you’re able to do.”
Profs. Regina Barzilay and Dina Katabi discuss how AI could transform the field of medicine in a special episode of CNBC’s Squawk Box, broadcast live from MIT’s celebration for the new MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. Barzilay explains that her goal is “to teach machines to do stuff that humans cannot do, for instance predict who is going to get cancer within two years.”
President Rafael Reif and Stephen Schwarzman discuss the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing on Squawk Box. “We are integrating those computing and AI tools into all the disciplines we have, so every student here, no matter what he or she majors in, will be very comfortable using these new tools to practice their profession,” explains Reif.
WBUR’s Deborah Becker speaks with Prof. Regina Barzilay about her work applying AI to health care and Prof. Sangbae Kim about how the natural world has inspired his robotics research during a special Radio Boston segment highlighting innovation in the greater Boston area.
Xconomy reporter Jeff Engel writes about the three-day celebration held for the new MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing. Engel writes that during the event, Eric Schmidt, technical advisor for Alphabet, noted that the new college will help address the AI talent shortage. “The level of demand across everything is exploding in this field,” Schmidt explained.
Forbes reporter Jessica Baron writes that MIT researchers have developed a platform that “addresses the key issue in cloud computing, which is that the data (or “breadcrumbs”) we leave behind online when we search the web, sign up for subscriptions, use social media, make purchases, etc. is stored on remote data servers where the information is then combined and sold to advertisers.”
New York Times reporter Janet Morrissey spotlights Prof. Regina Barzilay and Prof. Dina Katabi’s work developing new AI systems aimed at improving health care. “It’s absolutely the future; it’s even the present,” says Barzilay. “The question is how fast do we adopt it?”
Forbes contributor Gil Press writes about MIT cybersecurity startup Duality Technologies, which is working on guaranteeing privacy and utility. Press explains that the company is using a cybersecurity technique called Homomorphic Encryption, which “allows for processing and analysis of the encrypted data without having the secret key.”
In an article for The New York Times Magazine about the history of women working in the field of computer programming, Clive Thompson highlights the work of Mary Allen Wilkes, a “programming whiz” who worked at MIT’s Lincoln Lab back in the 1960s on the creation of the LINC.
Writing for The New York Times about up-and-coming technology startups, Erin Griffith highlights MIT spinoff Benchling, which is developing software that allows lab scientists to store notes and records in the cloud. The software is aimed at enabling scientists to “more easily use the records to collaborate with one another,” Griffith explains.
In an article for the Financial Times, President L. Rafael Reif calls for government investment in AI research, and educational offerings that integrate the study of AI into every discipline. “Those nations and institutions which act now to help shape the future of AI will help shape the future for us all,” writes Reif.
CBS This Morning correspondent Nikki Battiste visits MIT to learn more about a device developed by MIT researchers that uses wireless signals to detect food contamination. “We hope to be able to build a portable device that a person can take with them when they're trying to buy something from a supermarket or from a farmer's market,” explains Prof. Fadel Adib.
Wall Street Journal reporter Sara Castellanos spotlights how researchers from MIT and Microsoft participated in a two-day hackathon with curators and digital experts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Together, they aimed to develop new AI technologies that could deliver new and personalized experiences “with a view toward deepening user engagement.”
Reporting for Scientific American’s “60-Second Science” podcast, Christopher Intagliata explores how MIT developed a device, called a rectenna, that can capture energy from Wi-Fi signals and convert them into electricity. The scientists “envision a smart city where buildings, bridges and highways are studded with tiny sensors to monitor their structural health, each sensor with its own rectenna,” Intagliata explains.