MIT Sloan School of Management

A new study by MIT researchers has found that “AI chatbots were surprisingly effective at convincing people to vote for a particular candidate or change their support for a particular issue,” reports Alex Wilkins for New Scientist. “Even for attitudes about presidential candidates, which are thought to be these very hard-to-move and solidified attitudes, the conversations with these models can have much bigger effects than you would expect based on previous work,” says Visiting Prof. David Rand. 

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere “examined how popular chatbots could change voters’ minds about candidates in the United States, Canada and Poland,” reports Will Oremus for The Washington Post. 

Matt Carey MBA '17 and Greg Charvat, a former visiting researcher at the MIT Media Lab, co-founded TeraDAR, a startup that has developed advanced sensor technology that can see through various weather conditions that often confuse existing car sensors, reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe. “We’re going to the last part of the electromagnetic spectrum that no one has ever been able to build a product at before,” explains Carey. “And instead of being able to see through your hand like an X-ray, we can see through rain and snow and dust and fog.”

Alumnus Jerry Lu and his colleagues have developed OOFSkate, an AI-powered app that can analyze a figure skater’s “jump height, rotation speed, airtime and even landing quality,” reports Dave Skretta for the Associated Press. “Our vision for the system is to automate the technical calling of the sport,” says Lu. “This manifests itself in a combination of using AI-assisted computer vision, but also the knowledge of figure skating, essentially taking out the stuff that should be judged without subjectivity.”

Writing for Forbes, Senior Lecturer Guadalupe Hayes-Mota 08, SM '16, MBA '16 explains the CARES framework, a new model for founders looking to integrate ethics into their company.  “Biotechnology can cure, extend and transform life,” writes Hayes-Mota. “But based on my experiences, its full potential can only be realized when innovation and ethics advance together. To every scientist-founder at the edge of discovery: How can your business plan not only explain how you’ll succeed, but also why your success should exist?” 

A new study by researchers from MIT and elsewhere describes “agentic AI as a ‘new class of systems’ that ‘can plan, act, and learn on their own,’” reports Matt O’Brien for the Associated Press.

Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Maggie Prosser spotlights senior Alice Hall, who was selected as one of the 2026 Rhodes Scholars. “Never stop trying to learn, especially from the people around you,” says Hall. “You don’t have to be a Rhodes scholar to change the world. Just be yourself.” 

Vivian Chinoda '25, Alice Hall, Sofia Lara, and Sophia Wang '24 have been named 2026 Rhodes Scholars, reports Michael Nietzel for Forbes. “This class of U.S .Rhodes Scholars will pursue studies across the social sciences, humanities, and biological and physical sciences,” writes Nietzel. 

Boston 25 spotlights Vivian Chinoda '25, Alice Hall, Sofia Lara, and Sophia Wang '24 who have been named 2026 Rhodes Scholars. “The students will attend the University of Oxford as part of the Rhodes scholar program, which awards more than 100 scholarships worldwide each year for students to pursue two to three years of graduate studies.”

Vivian Chinoda '25, Alice Hall, Sofia Lara, and Sophia Wang '24 have been selected as 2026 Rhodes Scholars, reports Lila Hempel-Edgers for The Boston Globe. “It’s just a thrill and an inspiration to meet each one of them,” said Prof. Nancy Kanwisher, who co-chairs MIT’s Presidential Committee on Distinguished Fellowships. “You just can’t believe how accomplished they are and how thoughtful they are about the major problems facing the world.”

Sloan lecturer Michael Schrage speaks with Fortune reporter Sheryl Estrada about the implications of workslop, “AI-generated content that masquerades as good work but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.” “Ultimately, serious senior management will demand workslop metrics the same way they demand quality metrics,” says Schrage. “They’ll use LLMs to detect slop patterns in computational tasks—essentially, you’ll fight AI with AI.” 

Prof. Stuart Madnick speaks with Miami Herald reporter Michelle Marchante about online phishing schemes. Madnick explains that while IP addresses can sometimes give a general idea of where a person was when they went online, it’s not a foolproof way to determine their exact location. He adds that anyone can buy a URL and redirect it to another website. 

New York Times reporter Gina Ryder spotlights how Maria Paskowitz '96, MBA '02 and her neighbors have maintained a longstanding community tradition of transforming their Manhattan neighborhood into an open-air museum of Halloween art. This year Paskowitz has transformed “the exterior of the brownstone where she’s lived for the past decade into a colosseum,” writes Ryder. “She is collaborating with her neighbor, Elizabeth Styron, whose children, aged 9, 13 and 17, will dress as gladiators prepared for combat and a chariot race.” 

Stwart Peña Feliz MBA '23 co-founded MacroCycle, a startup that has “devised a way to pluck desirable synthetic fibers from waste textiles, leaving everything else behind,” reports Tim de Chant for TechCrunch. “MacroCycle differs because it doesn’t break down polymers,” explains Tim de Chant. “Instead, it loops the polymer chains back on themselves, forcing them into rings called macrocycles. Those macrocycles remain behind as different solvents wash away contaminants, which themselves could be recycled. Later, the rings are reopened to reform the polymer chain.” 

Writing for STAT, Senior Lecturer Guadalupe Hayes-Mota 08, SM '16, MBA '16 examines how the closure of local pharmacies across the country poses a significant public health risk, particularly for Americans in rural communities who, like Hayes-Mota’s father, “depend on their local pharmacy not only for medicine, but for survival.” Hayes-Mota emphasizes that “addressing this crisis requires three urgent steps: supporting underserved areas with targeted incentives and mobile or telepharmacy services, investing in the workforce through safe staffing and career pathways, and granting pharmacists provider status with expanded scope of practice.”