Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS)

Prof. Marzyeh Ghassemi and Monica Agrawal PhD '23 speak with Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray about the risks on relying solely on AI for medical information. “What I’m really, really worried about is economically disadvantaged communities,” says Ghassemi. “You might not have access to a health care professional who you can quickly call and say, ‘Hey… Should I listen to this?’”  

Prof. David Karger speaks with GBH’s Morning Edition host Mark Herz about the rapid development of new AI tools, the need for generative AI regulation, and the importance of transparency when it comes to AI-generated content. "I think we need to involve more entities, more people, more sources in the fact-checking process,” says Karger. “We need to figure out how to ensure that the fact checking can propagate into the platforms, even though the platforms are not doing the fact checking themselves.” 

Prof. Kevin Chen and his colleagues have developed a bee-like robot that can assist with farming practices, such as artificial pollination without damaging crops, reports Claire Turrell for Offrange. “Chen’s robot bee, which is tethered to a power source, is currently limited to flying between plastic flowers in the lab, but the robot engineer can see its potential,” explains Turrell. “Bees are doing great in terms of open-field farming,” says Chen. “But there is one potential type of pollination I think we can consider in the longer term, which is indoor farming,” 

Graduate student Stephen Casper speaks with Wired reporter Matt Burgess about the rise of “deepfake video abuse and its role in nonconsensual intimate imagery generation.” “This ecosystem is built on the back of open-source models,” says Casper. “Oftentimes it’s just an open-source model that has been used to develop an app that then a user uses.” 

Prof. Armando Solar-Lezama and Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, speak with CNBC reporter Trevor Laurence Jockims about the impact of AI in the workforce. “These transitions are about efficiency, but also about trust and transparency: workers will need to trust that companies aren’t simply using AI as a cover for cost-cutting,” says Rus. 

Prof. Jonathan How and graduate student Yi-Hsuan (Nemo) Hsiao speak with Tech Briefs reporter Andrew Corselli about their latest work developing an aerial microrobot that is “agile enough complete 10 consecutive somersaults in 11 seconds, even when wind disturbances threatened to push it off course.” Hsiao explains that: “This work demonstrates that soft and microrobots, traditionally limited in speed, can now leverage advanced control algorithms to achieve agility approaching that of natural insects and larger robots, opening up new opportunities for multimodal locomotion.” 

Researchers at MIT have “found a way to transform a flat sheet into a functional 3D object with a single pull of a string,” reports Luis Prada for Vice. “The team developed a computational method that lets users design three-dimensional objects that can be fabricated as flat grids and then deployed almost instantly with a single tug,” explains Prada. 

Researchers at MIT have developed a new type of material that can transform into a 3D structure with the simple pull of a string, reports Gayoung Lee for Gizmodo. The new material could “have an impressive range of applications, from transportable medical devices and foldable robots to modular space habitats on Mars,” Lee explains. 

MIT researchers have developed “GelSight,” a system that provides robots with a sense of touch, reports Ben Guarino for Scientific American. “GelSight can identify by touch the tiny letters spelling out LEGO on the stud of a toy brick,” explains Guarino. 

Sherwin Greenblatt '62, SM '64 reflects on his two-decade tenure as director of MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service (VMS), a program that provides support for entrepreneurs in the MIT community, reports Jon Chesto for The Boston Globe.  “VMS differs from many mentoring programs in that entrepreneurs are connected to not just one mentor, but several subject matter experts, depending on their needs,” explains Chesto. “These are also considered long-term commitments, not just several months of counsel and brainstorming.” 

A study by MIT researchers examining the carbon emissions of self-driving cars found that “the power required to run one billion driverless vehicles driving for one hour per day could consume as much energy as all existing data centers in the world,” reports Claire Brown for The New York Times. Graduate student Soumya Sudhakar explains that another big unknown is how autonomous vehicles could change the way people travel, adding to the uncertainty over the overall long-term emissions outlook for self-driving cars. 

Addis Energy, a startup co-founded by Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang is using the earth “as a chemical reactor to make ammonia in a cleaner way,” reports Alex Knapp for Forbes. The team identifies “rocky formations underground with large amounts of iron,” explains Knapp. “Then they inject those rocks with water, nitrogen and a chemical catalyst. That causes the oxygen in the water to bind with the iron in the rocks—making rust—freeing the hydrogen, which reacts with nitrogen to form ammonia.” 

Fortune reporter Orianna Rosa Royle spotlights Luana Lopes Lara '18, co-founder of Kalshi, a company that allows users to bet on the outcome of events, such as “elections, sports matches, and pop culture happenings.” Rosa Royle details Lopes Lara’s journey establishing Kalshi with her co-founder Tarek Mansour ’18, MNG ’19. 

Fox Business host Stuart Varney spotlights MIT’s new Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making (AI+D) major, which has quickly become, “the second most popular undergrad major at MIT.” 

Prof. Kevin Chen and his colleagues have designed a tiny, insect-sized aerial microrobot that is “faster and more acrobatic than any of its predecessors,” reports Phie Jacobs for Science. The device, “which measures just 4 centimeters across and weighs less than a paperclip, flies almost five times faster and accelerates twice as quickly as existing microrobots,” explains Jacobs. “It can also execute sharp turns while enduring 160-centimeter-per-second wind gusts and—perhaps most impressively—can complete 10 consecutive somersaults in 11 seconds.”