SHASS

In an interview with CNN reporter Madeline Holcombe, Prof. Sherry Turkle shares her views on AI tools and companionship, and how AI chatbots can impact social connection and isolation. “Intimacy requires vulnerability — there is no intimacy without vulnerability,” says Turkle. “What AI offers is connection without vulnerability. You are not getting a sustaining form of intimacy and connection. You are getting a non-nourishing combination that may give the sense of a quick fix, but is not sustaining.” 

Forbes contributor Michael T. Nietzel spotlights the 120 new members and 25 international members elected by the National Academy of Sciences for 2026. Several MIT faculty members – including Professors Michale Fee, Gareth McKinley, Keith Nelson, Bengt Holmstrom and Catherine Wolfram – were selected. 

Prof. Kate Brown speaks with Zoe Matthews of GBH about growing interest in urban gardening. Matthews highlights Brown’s course about cooperative agriculture at MIT, during which “her students produced an accessible how-to guide on starting an urban farm.” 

Prof. Daron Acemoglu joins Slate’s “Money Talks” podcast to explain his research into pro-worker technologies and how we can not only avoid the AI job apocalypse but also improve workers’ lives by shifting the goal of AI from automation to collaboration. “Artificial intelligence is quite different than human intelligence,” says Acemoglu. “And when two things are different, a natural way to combine them is in a complimentary way.”

Prof. Kate Brown, author of “Tiny Gardens Everywhere,” speaks with Forbes reporter Alan Ohnsman of Forbes about the benefits of home gardens. Brown notes that people can “put in some healthy soils that are rich with compost, which feeds microbes and worms and black soldier flies, all these creatures that are in the soil so the soil is alive. Then you put in plants, trees, berry bushes, lettuces, greens, whatever. And when it rains, those healthy soils soak up a lot more water… [which is] great for flooding. They sequester a lot of carbon, more than any of our aesthetic alternatives. And of course, they can feed people.”

Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Kate Brown and David Greenwood-Sanchez of the University of Iowa explore the growing popularity of transforming residential yards into home gardens. They emphasize: “With food prices up 27 percent since 2020, it is a good time for Massachusetts legislators to consider protecting gardeners from vegetation restrictions so that they can grow plants that, in contrast to turf grass, nurture birds, bees, and the occasional rabbit — and their own families and neighbors.”

Writing for the Financial Times, Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu explores the rise of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and the future of U.S. democracy and liberalism. “I argue that nothing short of forging a new working-class liberalism can succeed,” writes Acemoglu. “This has to center on shared prosperity, a reintegration of the lower-education workers into politics, a commitment to local governance by all communities (within the bounds of protecting basic liberties) and true diversity of opinion (even on controversial matters).”

In a roundup of books aimed at helping people create healthier smartphone habits, New York Times reporter Hope Reese spotlights Prof. Sherry Turkle’s book, “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.” Reese writes that, “Using anecdotes from parents, educators and students, Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and sociologist at MIT, shows how the deterioration of conversation leads to loneliness. Setting limits on tech use and protecting spaces for real conversation can stave this off. But face-to-face conversation, she argues, is paramount.”

Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with CNBC reporter Laya Neelakandan about the labor shortages impacting senior care across the country. “If we can create a better caring system with an entitlement to all care for those who need it, that will free millions of workers to make our economy grow,” Gruber explains.

Prof. David Autor speaks with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria about how China moving into sectors like robotics, AI, quantum computing, fusion power, telecommunications, aviation and more could significantly impact the U.S. economy. Autor notes that by focusing on the last trade war with China, “the U.S. is distracting itself from the really formidable challenge we find ourselves facing now from China’s incredible innovative capacity and very, very intensive investment.” 

Prof. David Autor joins Possible podcast hosts Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger to discuss everything from the cross-country road trip that helped inspire his research focused on technology, work and inequality to how AI might impact American workers. Autor notes that if AI technologies are implemented in the best way possible for humankind, “we would give people more secure and fulfilling work. We would give them more access to education and access to better healthcare, everywhere. And those things alone would improve welfare in so many dimensions. Not just in terms of material standard living, not just in comfort, but investing in our kids, creating opportunity for the next generation.”

Speaking with Wall Street Journal reporter Justin Lahart, Prof. Sendhil Mullainathan makes the case that people have a choice about what kind of technology AI becomes. “People imagine that AI is going to automate things, but they don’t appreciate that automation is just one path. There’s nothing intrinsic about machine learning or AI that puts us on that path. The other path is really the path of augmentation,” says Mullainathan. “Whether we end up building things that replace us, or things that enhance our capacities, that is something that we can influence.”

Prof. David Autor joins Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen on their American Enterprise Institute podcast to discuss his research examining the impact of China entering the World Trade Organization, how the U.S. can protect vital industries from unfair trade practices, and the potential impacts of AI. “If you say, we're running a race against China, and certainly we are in many ways, we have two tools at our disposal. One is we can try to trip them up and hobble them. The other is we could bulk up and run faster. And we're going to have to do both,” says Autor. “We have to be willing to do the expensive stuff as well as the cheap stuff. The cheap stuff is like, let's put tariffs on them. The expensive stuff is let's invest in ourselves. And those are complementary activities.”

Research by Prof. David Autor finds that following the Covid-19 pandemic, wages for lower-paid US workers increased, reports Soumaya Keynes for The Financial Times. Autor and his colleagues found that people switching to better jobs served as a mechanism for boosting pay. 

Prof. Sherry Turkle joins Manoush Zomorodi of NPR’s "Body Electric" to discuss her latest research on human relationships with AI chatbots, which she says can be beneficial but come with drawbacks since artificial relationships could set unrealistic expectations for real ones. "What AI can offer is a space away from the friction of companionship and friendship,” explains Turkle. “It offers the illusion of intimacy without the demands. And that is the particular challenge of this technology."