Media Lab

Prof. Eric Klopfer, co-director of the RAISE initiative (Responsible AI for Social Empowerment in Education), speaks with GBH reporter Diane Adame about the importance of providing students guidance on navigating artificial intelligence systems. “I think it's really important for kids to be aware that these things exist now, because whether it's in school or out of school, they are part of systems where AI is present,” says Klopfer. “Many humans are biased. And so the [AI] systems express those same biases that they've seen online and the data that they've collected from humans.”

WBUR’s Lloyd Schwartz spotlights Prof. Tod Machover’s revival of “VALIS” at MIT, staged by Prof. Jay Scheib. “The score is an inventive and often hauntingly beautiful arrangement of synthesizer, live instruments, and electronically expanded instruments,” writes Schwartz, “which Machover calls ‘hyper-instruments,’ a compelling amalgamation of minimalism, medieval, Wagner and rock.”

Popular Science reporter Andrew Paul writes that MIT researchers have developed a new long-range, low-power underwater communication system. Installing underwater communication networks “could help continuously measure a variety of oceanic datasets such as pressure, CO2, and temperature to refine climate change modeling,” writes Paul, “as well as analyze the efficacy of certain carbon capture technologies.”

Prof. Tod Machover speaks with Boston Globe reporter A.Z. Madonna about the restaging of his opera ‘VALIS’ at MIT, which features an AI-assisted musical instrument developed by Nina Masuelli ’23.  “In all my career, I’ve never seen anything change as fast as AI is changing right now, period,” said Machover. “So to figure out how to steer it towards something productive and useful is a really important question right now.”

In a new MIT study, researchers found that people were less likely to order a menu item when it was specifically labeled as "vegan" compared to when it was not, reports Meryl Davids Landau for National Geographic. “The research is not trying to tell anyone they need to strictly transition into these diets in order to make an impact,” says graduate student Alex Berke. “This is about people eating more sustainably, more often, and what can we do to guide people towards those practices.”

Researchers at MIT have developed a wearable ultrasound device that can be used to detect early signs of breast cancer, reports Rachel Keller and Bob Dumas for Boston 25 News. “This technology will be able to let you know if there’s a question mark, if there’s an anomaly, in your breast tissue,” says Prof. Canan Dagdeviren.

Professor Alex Pentland and Alex Lipton, a Connection Science Fellow at MIT, write for Scientific American about how social media can impact financial systems. “Before Twitter and Facebook, a spooked investor or customer would have to call, personally visit or even e-mail and text colleagues to urge them to withdraw funds from a troubled bank,” explain Pentland and Lipton. “Nowadays sophisticated clients can act as soon as they read a Tweet. Social media alerts everyone all at once, and a few clicks on a computer screen can wipe an account clean.”

Researchers at MIT have developed a wearable ultrasound patch that could be used to allow women to monitor themselves for early signs of breast cancer, reports Amy Norton for HealthDay. “The hope is to one day use such portable technology to help diagnose and monitor a range of diseases and injuries – in a way that’s more accessible and cheaper than using traditional scanners housed at medical facilities,” explains Norton.

Researchers at MIT have developed a “flexible patch that can take ultrasound images comparable to those done by medical centers, but can fit into a bra,” reports Sara Kiley Watson for Popular Science. “The researchers tested their device on a 71-year-old subject with a history of breast cysts, and were able to detect cysts as small as 0.3 centimeters in diameter up to 8 centimeters deep in the tissue, all while maintaining a resolution similar to traditional ultrasounds,” writes Kiley Watson.

MIT researchers have designed a wearable ultrasound device that attaches to a bra and could be used to detect early-stage breast tumors, reports Lizzy Lawrence for STAT. “I’m hoping to really make it real, and to touch people’s lives,” says Prof. Canan Dagdeviren. “I want to see the impact of my technology not only in the lab, but on society.”

Celtics forward Jaylen Brown spoke with Dana Jacobson of CBS Mornings about his mission to help improve equality in the City of Boston, highlighting the Bridge Program at the Media Lab, which is aimed providing opportunities in science and technology for underrepresented communities. “I think education is one of the most powerful devices that we have and is one of the ways our social mobility is being controlled at a very early age,” says Brown. “Being able to have my students… get to learn directly from MIT professors, MIT scientists, NASA astronauts, you get to directly benefit from those stories and life lessons. My goal is to build the next leaders, the next generation of leaders for the world.”

Celtics forward Jaylen Brown signed his supermax contract extension in front of high school students participating in the Bridge Program at the Media Lab, an effort focused on providing opportunities in science and technology for underrepresented communities, writes Adam Himmelsbach for The Boston Globe. Brown noted he found out the deal was finalized during a robotics session with the students. “I was learning,” he said. “I was a part of the curriculum. We were doing some teaching, doing some active engaging, some workshops. So I was able to put my phone down and just get right into class with the Bridge students.”

Researchers at MIT have developed a wearable patch that can allow drugs to pass through the skin using ultrasonic sound waves, reports Sandra Tsing for NPR. “The researchers say their lightweight design allows for reliable use on the go,” says Tsing. “This could treat skin conditions, both medical or cosmetic.” 

Researchers from MIT have found that since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a decrease in the number of interactions between people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, reports Danny Westneat for The Seattle Times. “It’s creating an urban fabric that is actually more brittle, in the sense that we are less exposed to other people,” says research scientist Esteban Moro. “We don’t get to know other people in the city … to know other people’s needs. If we don’t see them around the city, that will be impossible.”

In conversation with Matthew Huston at Science, Prof. John Horton discusses the possibility of using chatbots in research instead of humans. As he explains, a change like that would be similar to the transition from in-person to online surveys, “"People were like, ‘How can you run experiments online? Who are these people?’ And now it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, of course you do that.’”