MIT researchers conducted a global survey to determine how people felt about the ethical dilemmas presented by autonomous vehicles, The Economist reports. Prof. Iyad Rahwan explains that he and his colleagues thought it was important to survey people from around the world as “nobody was really investigating what regular people thought about this topic.”
Boston Magazine’s Matthew Reed Baker highlights Prof. Tod Machover’s new opera, “Schoenberg in Hollywood.” Baker writes that “in typically Machoverian fashion, the production uses mixed media and time jumps” as it explores composer Arnold Schoenberg’s flight from Nazi Germany to California.
Popular Mechanics reporter Dave Grossman writes that MIT researchers surveyed more than 2 million people to gauge people’s opinions on the ethics of autonomous vehicles. Grossman explains that the researchers believe their findings demonstrate how “people across the globe are eager to participate in the debate around self-driving cars and want to see algorithms that reflect their personal beliefs.”
MIT students, who were disappointed by articles depicting AI as a fast-approaching threat, are training AI to create new ideas in fashion, food, art, and dance that are then created by humans, writes Kaveh Waddell of Axios. MIT postdoc Pinar Yanardag, the project founder, envisions a future where humans work with AI to boost their creativity.
BBC Click spotlights a new semi-autonomous, wearable robot developed by MIT researchers that takes different types of measurements from the skin to identify conditions such as skin cancer. “The doctor can see your whole body, but the doctor doesn’t pick up the small changes in your skin conditions, which the robot can do,” says graduate student Artem Dementyev.
As part of Wired’s 25 anniversary festival, Prof. Joi Ito, director of the Media Lab, leads a conversation with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman about “blitzscaling,” which encourages new companies to prioritize speed over efficiency. Ito points out that blitzscaling technology “accelerates you in the direction you are already going,” making it hard to correct any issues that arise early on.
Quartz reporter Zoë Schlanger writes that a new study by MIT researchers demonstrates how climate change can negatively impact a person’s mental health. The researchers found that “on average, the mental health of low-income people was most harmed by hotter temperatures. Women, on average, were also harmed more than men.”
Natasha Frost of Quartz speaks with graduate student Mostafa Mohsenvand about his work developing a new wearable device that could one day be used to help people with memory loss. Frost writes the device may help those suffering with Alzheimer’s by “making memories instantly accessible externally for those who may otherwise be unable to recall them.”
A new report from MIT researchers finds a correlation between climate change and an increase in mental health issues, writes Nicole Karlis for Salon. Research scientist Nick Obradovich explains that the study shows, “policymakers should be very actively considering how to increase societal resilience to our changing climate.”
MIT researchers have created an AI system that allows users to automatically erase people and objects from photos, writes Mark Wilson for Fast Company. Wilson writes that the researchers have “built a remarkably simple front-end interface to control [the system]. In one column, you select what you’d like to remove from your photos, and in the right column, you select your source material.”
Prof. Joi Ito, director of the Media Lab, writes for Wired about what he calls the Great Digitization Event (GDE), during which the internet is quickly killing off systems, but also allowing new organizations to emerge. “I see the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements also using new versions of the same methods to begin the long path to ending centuries of patriarchal power,” Ito writes.
Adam Vaccaro of The Boston Globe writes that Prof. Joi Ito’s opening keynote address at HUBweek’s Change Maker Conference focused on how society adapts to major changes. “You can try to get companies to behave carefully by changing regulations, but you’re not going to fundamentally change the outcome unless you change the goals,” explains Ito.
CNN reporter Susan Scutti writes that MIT researchers have found that climate change could cause an increase in mental health issues. During a 30-day period, exposure to hotter temperatures and higher rates of precipitation “produced increases in the probability that people were going to report some mental health problem in that period,” explains research scientist Nick Obradovich.
MIT researchers find that hotter and more extreme weather can negatively impact a person’s mental health, reports Karen Kaplan for The Los Angeles Times. The researchers explain that, “given the vital role that sound mental health plays in personal, social, and economic well-being, our findings provide added evidence that climatic changes pose substantial risks to human systems.”
New York Times reporter Penelope Green profiles Prof. Neri Oxman, spotlighting her work with material ecology. Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at the MoMA, says that the “reason why she is a gift to the field of architecture and design is that her science works, her aesthetics work, and her theory works.”