Jerry Lu MFin ’24 speaks with Fast Company reporter Grace Snelling about his work developing a new AI tool that can be used to help figure skaters land their jumps and Olympic audiences better understand just how challenging a quadruple Axel is. “Some of the artistic sports were missing this data-driven storytelling ability—if you watch hockey on TV, it looks slow, but if you watch it in person, it looks fast,” Lu explains.
Prof. Andrew Lo speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Coy about why he feels current AI systems aren’t suited to serving as financial advisors and his goal to create “an AI financial adviser that is a true fiduciary—namely, an entity that always puts the client’s interests first and tailors its advice to their particular needs, including emotional needs.” Lo notes that: “The AI people are using now can be dangerous, especially if the user isn’t fully aware of the biases, inaccuracies and other limits” of large language models.
Prof. Yossi Sheffi speaks with Boston Globe reporter Claire Thornton about fraud and crime in the digital age, and its impact on supply chain management. According to Sheffi, “instead of crimes that rely on physical covertness, breaking and entering, violence, or the threat of it, digital-age criminals are finding more success posing as legitimate members of the supply chain in order to trick businesses,” writes Thronton.
Prof. Andrew Lo speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Cheryl Winokur Munk about how AI tools could be used to help people with financial planning. Winokur Munk writes that Lo recommends providing “just enough information to get relevant answers. And leave out highly personal details like your name, address, salary, employer or specific assets…as such details put people at risk should the AI be compromised.” Lo also advises “trying several AI platforms,” writes Winokur Munk. And “the advice should be run by a professional, trusted family or friends. Be a bit skeptical and double-check with humans.”
Prof. Andrew Lo speaks with NBC Boston reporter Daniela Gonzalez about how AI tools could be used as a starting point to help people manage their monthly expenses and improve their savings strategies. Lo notes that AI tools “can tell you, given the kind of things you're looking to purchase, where the various deals might be.” He added that “once you get the feedback, you have to make sure that what you're getting is legit, versus what they call hallucinations that large language models are likely to do on occasion.”
Prof. Noelle Selin speaks with Fast Company reporter Kristin Toussaint about the importance of air quality monitoring. “It’s really important to encourage people to understand their environment and to democratize access to measurements and science,” says Selin.
A study by Prof. Noelle Selin has found that climate change will impact our ability to curb smoke and smog pollutants, reports Vivian La for WBUR. The researchers “used computer models to predict how air pollution will develop in the Eastern United States over the next few decades,” explains La. Selin underscored the importance of policies that reduce air pollution noting that: “what we’re doing to the atmosphere has impacts and it’s important not to roll these back.”
Principal Research Scientist Kalyan Veeramachaneni speaks with WBUR On Point host Meghna Chakrabarti about the benefits and risks of training AI on synthetic data. “I think the AI that we have as of today and we are using is largely very small; I don't mean that as in size, but in the tasks that it can do,” says Veeramachaneni. “And as days go by, we are asking more and more of it… that requires us to provide more data, train more models that are much more efficient in reasoning, and can solve problems that we haven't thought of solving.”
Grist reporter Matt Simon spotlights a new study co-authored by MIT researchers that finds “large-scale deployment of long-duration energy storage isn’t just feasible but essential for renewables to reach their full potential, and would even cut utility bills.” Graduate student Martin Staadecker explains: “Battery storage on its own — or what people call short-duration energy storage — is very important. But you can’t just rely on lithium-ion batteries, because it would be very expensive to have enough to actually provide power for an entire week.”
Prof. Jessika Trancik speaks with ABC News reporter Julia Jacobo about the role of green hydrogen in decarbonization efforts. “Hydrogen itself could be a really important component to a green transition,” says Trancik.
Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof. Simon Johnson, recipients of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics, join Boston Public Radio to discuss their research examining the role of institutions in creating shared prosperity. “For the longer-term health of the U.S. economy,” says Acemoglu, “there’s probably nothing more important than its institutions. If any president, any politician, any party damages those institutions, that’s the first thing we should focus on.” Johnson adds: “Democracy has to deliver on shared prosperity. Otherwise people get very annoyed and they question the system.”
Prof. Simon Johnson, one of the recipients of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics, speaks with Times Higher Education reporter Jack Grove about his journey from a childhood in Sheffield as the son of a screw manufacturer to studying for his PhD at MIT and serving as chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. Speaking about how to help ensure AI is used to benefit society and workers, Johnson explains: “Big tech doesn’t like us, but we need a plan for this, and the role of economists like us is to get ideas like this out there so they can be hammered out in the policy world.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu, a recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economic sciences, speaks with CNBC about the challenges facing the American economy. Acemoglu notes that in his view the coming economic storm is really “both a challenge and an opportunity,” explains Acemoglu. “I talk about AI, I talk about aging, I talk about the remaking of globalization. All of these things are threats because they are big changes, but they’re also opportunities that we could use in order to make ourselves more productive, workers more productive, workers earn more. In fact, even reduce inequality, but the problem is that we’re not prepared for it.”
Prof. Simon Johnson, who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in economic sciences with Prof. Daron Acemoglu, speaks with CNBC “Squawk Box” about his reaction to hearing the news that he was a Nobel laureate and his research on the role of strong institutions in shaping economies. “I think going forward we need to strengthen the resilience of our democracy in the United States,” says Johnson. He adds that having a “resilient democracy, a legitimate democracy, a democracy that everyone believes in and adheres to the results of elections, is absolutely fundamental to everything that we’ve been able to build.”
Prof. Simon Johnson, a recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economic sciences, joins Planet Money’s The Indicator podcast to discuss his research that demonstrates the importance of strong institutions for a country’s economic growth and prosperity. “Rejecting the result of a free and fair election, encouraging people to attack Congress when it's the process of formally validating that vote - that's not acceptable,” says Johnson. “Those moves - that kinds of actions can absolutely undermine, destroy any democracy. We've seen that many times around the world. It takes a long time to build strong institutions. It doesn't take long to overthrow them if you really put your mind to it.”