Profs. Thomas Malone and Erik Brynjolfsson discuss the future impact of humanoid robots on society with Jason Margolis of PRI’s The World. “The next 10 years could be the best 10 years we've ever seen or the worst decade, and that depends less on the technology and more on the choices we make,” Brynjolfsson says.
MIT researchers have developed an AI system that can predict Alzheimer’s risk by forecasting how patients will perform on a test measuring cognitive decline up to two years in advance, reports Casey Ross for STAT.
Smithsonian reporter Emily Matchar spotlights AlterEgo, a device developed by MIT researchers to help people with speech pathologies communicate. “A lot of people with all sorts of speech pathologies are deprived of the ability to communicate with other people,” says graduate student Arnav Kapur. “This could restore the ability to speak for people who can’t.”
MIT researchers have created an app that translates proteins into music, reports Eva Amsen of Forbes. This method could potentially be used to “make it easier to process very subtle changes that would be less obvious if you looked at the data visually,” Amsen explains.
Rachel Metz reports for CNN that researchers at MIT and the Qatar Computing Research Institute have developed an AI system that can look at a picture of a pizza and determine which toppings should go on which layer. Postdoc Dimitrios Papadopoulos “believes this research could lead to non-food applications as well, such as a digital shopping assistant that uses AI to figure out how to put together a fashionable outfit,” writes Metz.
Prof. Markus Buehler speaks with Ira Flatow of Science Friday about his research, which attempts to better understand and create new proteins by translating them into music. Buehler explains that they were able to listen to proteins after discovering that “amino acids have a unique frequency spectrum which we could then make audible using a concept of transposition.”
Rachel Metz reports for CNN that researchers at MIT and the Qatar Computing Research Institute have developed an AI system that can look at a picture of a pizza and determine which toppings should go on which layer. Postdoc Dimitrios Papadopoulos “believes this research could lead to non-food applications as well, such as a digital shopping assistant that uses AI to figure out how to put together a fashionable outfit,” writes Metz.
Diana Cai writes for STAT about Prof. Markus Buehler’s new research to turn amino acids into music. “Buehler thinks the technology could help in understanding genetic diseases caused by misfolded proteins,” writes Cai, noting that, “AI may conceivably ‘hear’ patterns of misfolding that could distinguish dangerous mutations from harmless ones.”
In a new study, Prof. Markus Buehler converted 20 types of amino acids into a 20-tone scale to create musical compositions. “Those altered compositions were converted back into a conceptual amino acid chain, which enabled the team to generate variations of proteins that have never been seen in nature,” writes Becky Ferreira for Motherboard.
Gizmodo reporter Victoria Song writes that MIT researchers have developed a new system that can teach a machine how to make pizza by examining a photograph. “The researchers set out to teach machines how to recognize different steps in cooking by dissecting images of pizza for individual ingredients,” Song explains.
Using a tactile sensor and web camera, MIT researchers developed an AI system that allows robots to predict what something feels like just by looking at it, reports David Williams for CNN. “This technology could be used to help robots figure out the best way to hold an object just by looking at it,” explains Williams.
Forbes contributor Charles Towers-Clark explores how CSAIL researchers have developed a database of tactile and visual information that could be used to allow robots to infer how different objects look and feel. “This breakthrough could lead to far more sensitive and practical robotic arms that could improve any number of delicate or mission-critical operations,” Towers-Clark writes.
MIT researchers have created a new system that enables robots to identify objects using tactile information, reports Darrell Etherington for TechCrunch. “This type of AI also could be used to help robots operate more efficiently and effectively in low-light environments without requiring advanced sensors,” Etherington explains.
Fast Company reporter Michael Grothaus writes that CSAIL researchers have developed a new system that allows robots to determine what objects look like by touching them. “The breakthrough could ultimately help robots become better at manipulating objects,” Grothaus explains.
TechCrunch reporter Darrell Etherington writes that MIT researchers have developed a system that can predict a perso's trajectory. The tool could allow “robots that typically freeze in the face of anything even vaguely resembling a person walking in their path to continue to operate and move around the flow of human foot traffic."