TIME reporter Precious Adesina writes that researchers from MIT’s Senseable City Lab have developed an algorithm that measures how many urban trees are seen from a pedestrian’s perspective. Prof. Carlo Ratti explains that in addition to lowering urban temperatures, increasing the number of trees in a city can be “extraordinary in terms of collective well-being.”
This Quartz video highlights how MIT researchers are developing a self-driving boat system that can navigate waterways and can transform into different structures to move cargo, trash or build a temporary bridge. “The boats find the best path between preprogrammed locations, while using GPS, laser sensors, and cameras to avoid hitting anything,” explains Michael Tabb.
Katharine Schwab of Fast Company writes about the Media Lab’s Moral Machine project, which surveyed people about their feelings on the ethical dilemmas posed by driverless vehicles. Because the results vary based on region and economic inequality, the researchers believe “self-driving car makers and politicians will need to take all of these variations into account when formulating decision-making systems and building regulations,” Schwab notes.
Graduate students Ziv Epstein and Matt Groh have developed an AI system that adds spooky figures to photos, reports Mark Wilson for Fast Company. Wilson writes that the system “works so well because it places ghostly figures exactly where your brain naturally thinks they could be–on a path in the middle of a forest, rather than, say, floating randomly through the air.”
BBC News highlights how Media Lab researchers have built a software program that allows web users to suggest actions for a hired actor to perform. Researchers are “keen to see whether internet users can work together to issue a consistent series of commands to the actor that help complete the game, or whether the commands will be discordant.”
Lucas Laursen writes for Fortune that a global survey created by MIT researchers uncovered different regional attitudes about how autonomous vehicles should handle unavoidable collisions. Global carmakers, Laursen writes, “will need to use the findings at the very least to adapt how they sell their increasingly autonomous cars, if not how the cars actually operate.”
MIT researchers created an online game to determine how people around the world think autonomous vehicles should handle moral dilemmas, reports Laurel Wamsley for NPR. “Before we allow our cars to make ethical decisions, we need to have a global conversation to express our preferences to the companies that will design moral algorithms,” the researchers explain, “and to the policymakers that will regulate them.”
BBC News reporter Chris Fox writes that MIT researchers surveyed people about how an autonomous vehicle should operate when presented with different ethical dilemmas. Fox explains that the researchers hope their findings will “spark a ‘global conversation’ about the moral decisions self-driving vehicles will have to make.”
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.”
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.”
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.