Media Lab

Postdoctoral Associate Pat Pataranutaporn speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Heidi Mitchell about his work developing Future You, an online interactive AI platform that “allows users to create a virtual older self—a chatbot that looks like an aged version of the person and is based on an AI text system known as a large language model, then personalized with information that the user puts in.” Pataranutaporn explains: “I want to encourage people to think in the long term, to be less anxious about an unknown future so they can live more authentically today.” 

Prof. Pattie Maes speaks with Wired reporter Reece Rogers about the potential benefits and challenges posed by AI agents. “The way these systems are built, right now, they're optimized from a technical point of view, an engineering point of view,” says Maes. “But, they're not at all optimized for human-design issues.” 

Knowable Magazine reporter Katherine Ellison spotlights Future You, a new program developed by researchers at MIT that “offers young people a chance to chat with an online, AI-generated simulation of themselves at age 60.” 

New Yorker reporter Rivka Galchen visits the lab of Prof. Hugh Herr to learn more about his work aimed at the “merging of body and machine.” Herr and his team are developing bionic prosthetics that can be completely controlled by the human brain and are designed to allow users “to walk approximately as quickly and unthinkingly as anyone else.”  Herr imagines a future where “we will be able to sculpt our own brains and bodies, and therefore our own identities and experiences.”

Research from the Data Provenance Initiative, led by MIT researchers, has “found that many web sources used for training AI models have restricted their data, leading to a rapid decline in accessible information,” reports Gary Drenik for Forbes. 

Prof. Hugh Herr speaks with Nature reporter Fred Schwaller about his work developing bionic limbs. Schwaller notes that “Herr’s research team is focusing on surgical techniques and implants that improve on the electrodes used in current bionic-limb systems, which either penetrate the peripheral nerves or wrap around them.” Herr explains: “We’re reimagining how limbs should be amputated and bionic limbs constructed.” 

Researchers at MIT have developed a robot capable of assembling “building blocks called voxels to build an object with almost any shape,” reports Alex Wilkins for New Scientist. “You can get furniture-scale objects really fast in a very sustainable way, because you can reuse these modular components and ask a robot to reassemble them into different large-scale objects,” says graduate student Alexander Htet Kyaw.

Researchers at MIT have found that “more than 98% of prisons in the United States experienced at least ten days that were hotter than every previous summer, with the worst of the heat-exposed prisons concentrated in the Southwest,” reports Minnah Arshad for USA Today. s

Graduate student Nouran Soliman speaks with NBC Boston about the use of “personhood credentials,” a new technique that can be used to verify online users as human beings to help combat issues such as fraud and misinformation. “We are trying to also think about ways of implementing a system that incorporates personal credentials in a decentralized way,” explains Soliman. “It's also important not to have the power in one place because that compromises democracy.” 

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed “Future You” – an AI platform that uses generative AI to allow users to talk with an AI-generated simulation of a potential future you, reports Sammi Caramela for Vice. The research team hopes “talking to a relatable, virtual version of your future self about your current stressors, future goals, and your beliefs can improve anxiety, quell any obsessive thoughts, and help you make better decisions,” writes Caramela. 

Profs. Canan Dagdeviren and Hugh Herr speak with CNN discuss their work aimed at empowering patients and doctors. Inspired by her aunt’s experience with breast cancer, Dagdeviren and her students are developing new wearable devices that could help detect cancer at an earlier stage. Says Herr of his work developing prosthetics that can be controlled by the human nervous system: “There will be a point where technology is so sophisticated that we can actually rebuild limbs after amputation that will be as good and, ultimately, they will be better than intact biological limbs.” Herr adds that in the future he hopes “the conversation will not be about human limitation anymore. It will be about human ability and human expression.”

Researchers at MIT have developed “Future You,” a generative AI chatbot that enables users to speak with potential older versions of themselves, reports Sharon Goldman for Fortune. The tool “uses a large language model and information provided by the user to help young people ‘improve their sense of future self-continuity, a psychological concept that describes how connected a person feels with their future self,’” writes Goldman. “The researchers explained that the tool cautions users that its results are only one potential version of their future self, and they can still change their lives,” writes Goldman. 

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found that “human memories can be distorted by photos and videos edited by artificial intelligence,” reports Matthew Sparkes for New Scientist. “I think the worst part here, that we need to be aware or concerned about, is when the user isn’t aware of it,” says postdoctoral fellow Samantha Chan. “We definitely have to be aware and work together with these companies, or have a way to mitigate these effects. Maybe have sort of a structure where users can still control and say ‘I want to remember this as it was’, or at least have a tag that says ‘this was a doctored photo, this was a changed photo, this was not a real one’.”

Researchers at MIT have developed “AstroAnts,” autonomous, magnetic, robotic rovers roughly the size of a Hot Wheels toy car designed to monitor space vehicles and other hard-to-reach machinery, reports Jesus Diaz for Fast Company. “The idea is that, by constantly watching over the temperature and structural integrity of their cosmic rides, spaceships will be more resilient to the extreme conditions of space and astronauts will be safer,” explains Diaz.

CNN visits the lab of Prof. Canan Dagdeviren to learn more about her work developing wearable ultrasound devices that could help screen for early-stage breast cancer, monitor kidney health, and detect other cancers deep within the body. “Wearable technology will grow rapidly in the near future,” says Dagdeviren. “But in the far future, they will be one of the most powerful tools that we will be seeing in our daily life.”