Research

Researchers from MIT and Oxford University has found “social media platforms’ suspensions of accounts may not be rooted in political biases, but rather certain political groups’ tendency to share misinformation,” reports Miranda Nazzaro for The Hill. “Thus, even under politically neutral anti-misinformation polices, political asymmetries in enforcement should be expected,” researchers wrote. “Political imbalance in enforcement need not imply bias on the part of social media companies implementing anti-misinformation polices.” 

Prof. Jessika Trancik speaks with BBC reporter Isabelle Gerretsen about the future of electric vehicles and how shifting to EVs can help reduce carbon emissions. Trancik and her research lab developed an online tool, dubbed Carboncounter, that can analyze the climate impact of different vehicles. “A shift to an electric vehicle is one of the single most impactful decisions that someone can make if they want to reduce their own emissions," explains Trancik. 

A new working paper by MIT Prof. Antoinette Schoar and Brandeis Prof. Yang Sun explores how different people react to financial advice, reports Robin Wigglesworth for Financial Times. “The results indicate that most people do update their beliefs in the direction of the advice they receive, irrespective of their previous views,” writes Wigglesworth. 

Researchers at MIT have found large language models “often struggle to handle more complex problems that require true understanding,” reports Kirimgeray Kirimli for Forbes. “This underscores the need for future versions of LLMs to go beyond just these basic, shared capabilities,” writes Kirimli. 

Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Bloomberg reporter Jeran Wittenstein about the current state of AI and the technology’s economic potential. “You need highly reliable information or the ability of these models to faithfully implement certain steps that previously workers were doing,” says Acemoglu of the state of current large language models. “They can do that in a few places with some human supervisory oversight” — like coding — “but in most places they cannot. That’s a reality check for where we are right now." 

A new study by MIT scientists proposes that researchers should be able to detect near-flying primordial black holes by measuring the orbit of Mars, reports Darren Orf for Popular Mechanics. The researchers found that “if a primordial black hole passed within a few hundred million miles of the Red Planet, then a few years later, the planet’s orbit would have shifted by the small (but technically detectable) distance of about a meter,” Orf explains.

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. 

MIT researchers have found that more workers without college degrees are optimistic about AI and automation initiatives in the workplace, than those workers with a college diploma, reports Rebecca Klar for Bloomberg Law. The study found “27.4% of workers without a college degree estimated that automation will be beneficial for their job security, compared to 23.7% of workers with a college degree,” explains Klar. 

Researchers at MIT have found that “60% of workers who work with robotics and AI think they’ll see positive career impacts as a result in terms of productivity, satisfaction, and job safety,” reports Sam Becker for Fast Company.

Writing for Scientific American, MIT Prof. David Rand and University of Pennsylvania postdoctoral fellow Jennifer Allen highlight new challenges in the fight against misinformation. “Combating misbelief is much more complicated—and politically and ethically fraught—than reducing the spread of explicitly false content,” they write. “But this challenge must be bested if we want to solve the ‘misinformation’ problem.”

Researchers at MIT have developed a new method that “enables robots to intuitively identify relevant areas of a scene based on specific tasks,” reports Baba Tamim for Interesting Engineering. “The tech adopts a distinctive strategy to make robots effective and efficient at sorting a cluttered environment, such as finding a specific brand of mustard on a messy kitchen counter,” explains Tamim. 

Prof. Kerry Emanuel speaks with Washington Post reporters Sarah Kaplan, Shannon Osaka and Dan Stillman about the future of hurricane forecasting. “This is one thing that scares me, if these things can intensify more rapidly,” says Emanuel. “We’re going to have cases where forecasters go to bed with a tropical storm and wake up with a Category 5 when it’s too late to evacuate people.”

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’.”

Prof. Regina Barzilay has received the WebMD Health Heros award for her work developing a new system that uses AI to detect breast cancer up to 5 years earlier, reports WHDH. “We do have a right to know our risk and then we, together with our healthcare providers, need to manage them,” says Barzilay. 

A new study by MIT researchers suggests that “Mars’ missing atmosphere may be locked up in the planet’s clay-rich surface,” reports Tom Howarth for Newsweek. “According to the researchers, ancient water trickling through Mars' rocks could have triggered a series of chemical reactions, converting CO2 into methane and trapping the carbon in clay minerals for billions of years,” explains Howarth.