School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences

NPR’s Greg Rosalsky explains how Robert Hall PhD ’67 and Michael Woodford PhD ’83, this year’s Nobel Prize winners in economics, helped lay the groundwork for New Keynesian economics. “Hall and Woodford helped rebuild macroeconomics around the decisions of individual people and businesses,” writes Rosalsky. “Hall broke new ground in understanding how people's expectations about the future shape their spending today. Woodford built on that work, developing a framework that combined forward-looking spending decisions with sticky prices.” 

Forbes’ Michael T. Nietzel spotlights Robert Hall PhD ’67 and Michael Woodford PhD ’83, who were awarded the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for their work on economic stabilization policies. “The work of Hall and Woodford has proved beneficial for managing economic shocks like those from the pandemic and the energy crises of recent years,” Nietzel writes. “While recessions and episodes of high inflation have not disappeared, they tend to be less long-lasting.”  

Robert Hall PhD ’67 and Michael Woodford PhD ’83 have won the 2026 Nobel economics prize for their work “developing models that help central bankers and finance ministers to stabilize their countries, avoiding long recessions and runaway inflation,” writes reporter Graeme Wearden for The Guardian. “The laureates’ work has provided us with a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks and governments around the world,” says John Hassler, chair of the Nobel Committee. “With them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume.” 

Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto spotlights the fall fair event held as part of the MIT x GE Vernova Energy & Climate Alliance, during which, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik shared his enthusiasm for hiring MIT graduates. “Something we talk a lot about inside Vernova is the world is changing very quickly but we need to change quicker and even faster than that so we can lead in the world,” says Strazik. “Over the last year-plus on this campus, we see a lot of opportunities for us to get better through bringing you into the organization.”  

Prof. Justin Reich speaks to The Boston Globe’s John Hilliard about the implementation of AI in the Boston Public Schools. “There’s a risk of not engaging with AI and being left behind. But there’s also a risk that this is going to be harmful,” says Reich. “There’s no evidence which clearly says that one of these pathways is better than the other.” 

“Structured around key stages in psychological development — childhood, adolescence, love, work, [and] death,” Prof. Sherry Turkle’s latest book, “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines,” “argues strongly that our new ‘posthuman conversational partners’ [AI chatbots] are inadequate companions for life’s journey,” writes reporter Becky Hogge for the Financial Times. “The more we recognize our vulnerability to the virtual, the more we’ll be able to commit to the real,” explains Turkle. We need to “reinvent sociality.”  

In an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” Prof. Daron Acemoglu discusses his views on AI and how the technology could lead to worker displacement, without intervention. Concerns about AI and the labor market “should move us into thinking about what we can do because there is a lot we can do,” says Acemoglu. "Because the future is so uncertain, because the future is so much subject to our choice and agency, it is all the more important that we have this discussion." 

On Slate’s “What Next: TBD” podcast, Prof. Sherry Turkle explains the current “state of emergency” brought on by humans seeking connection with AI chatbots, detailed in her latest book “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.” In conversations with chatbots “empathy is undermined and our capacity for relationships with other people is undermined,” says Turkle. “It’s an emergency because empathy and our capacity for relationships with other people is what makes us human, and you can’t just have that deteriorated.”  

Prof. Sherry Turkle joins Tracey Follows, host of “Me:chine Dialogues,” to discuss issues with AI companionship, as described in her latest book “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.” “Chatbots are not interested that there's no water to drink, or that the weather is crazy, or we can't live in the heat, or the garbage isn't picked up,” says Turkle. “They don't live in that world. So the world needs you. Reality needs you. The idea that you're sitting there being told you're the greatest, you're wonderful, you're fantastic, by a thing that isn't a person: that's a corporate endgame.”

For The New York Times, reporter Jennifer Szalai reviews Prof. Sherry Turkle’s latest book, “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines,” about “the acceleration of human attempts to seek connection with chatbots.” “We have invited them [AI chatbots] not just into our homes but into some of the most private recesses of our emotional lives,” notes Szalai. “When people talk about how relaxing it is to talk to a chatbot, it’s because the real slips away,” writes Turkle in her book.  

A working paper by Prof. Drew Fudenberg and a team of researchers suggests that major AI companies should share their advances with one another to mitigate competitive pressures and decrease the potential of a catastrophic event, writes Amanda Taub for The New York Times. “If the players, including companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, can see that no one is racing into dangerous territory, they will have less motivation to do so themselves, the paper reasons,” explains Taub.  

In a video interview, Prof. Turkle speaks to CNN’s Madeline Holcombe about how AI chatbots may contribute to feelings of loneliness and isolation in adults. “Technology offered the possibility of feeling like friendship without the demands of vulnerability,” says Turkle. “It turns out you can’t have intimacy or friendship without vulnerability.” 

In a conversation with Slate’s Nitish Pahwa, Prof. Sherry Turkle discusses how to better bolster human connection and limit AI chatbot dependence, which she explores in her new book, “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.” “We’re not going to solve this problem by manipulating the chatbots,” says Turkle. “We’re going to solve this problem by getting back together as us. We have to summon what we think is important about being people, both for ourselves and for our kids.”  

Prof. Sherry Turkle speaks to The San Francisco Chronicle’s Jessica Zack about the risks related to humans developing intimate relationships with AI chatbots, detailed in her book “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.” “The experience of being with an object that uses the first person — the ‘I,’ and, even worse, the ‘we’— is problematic. We are evolved to think that if something talks to us that way, it is a person, so you’re fighting against your very deep evolutionary buttons that are being pushed,” says Turkle.  

In an opinion piece for The Boston Globe, Prof. Jonathan Gruber discusses Massachusetts’ Question 5, the proposed tax rebate rule that would mandate that taxes be returned to taxpayers each time the state’s revenues grow faster than wages and salaries. “Most economists believe a recession is coming but we can’t say when. The best way to plan is to have the savings to help us through, or to invest so that we are as strong as possible when it hits,” writes Gruber. “Question 5 chooses the third path — spending the money now, and letting the state suffer in the future.”