Technology and society

Prof. Jacopo Buongiorno speaks with Nature reporter Davide Castelvecchi about how AI has increased energy demand and the future of nuclear energy. 

Liquid AI, an MIT startup, is unveiling a new AI model based on a liquid neural network that “has the potential to be more efficient, less power-hungry, and more transparent than the ones that underpin everything from chatbots to image generators to facial recognition systems, reports Will Knight for Wired. 

Prof. Daron Acemoglu, a recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economic sciences, speaks with CNBC about the challenges facing the American economy. Acemoglu notes that in his view the coming economic storm is really “both a challenge and an opportunity,” explains Acemoglu. “I talk about AI, I talk about aging, I talk about the remaking of globalization. All of these things are threats because they are big changes, but they’re also opportunities that we could use in order to make ourselves more productive, workers more productive, workers earn more. In fact, even reduce inequality, but the problem is that we’re not prepared for it.” 

Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Greg Rosalsky of NPR’s Planet Money about a recent survey that claims "almost 40% of Americans, ages 18 to 64, have used generative AI." "My concern with their numbers is that it does not distinguish fundamentally productive uses of generative AI from occasional/frivolous uses," says Acemoglu. 

Sloan Visiting Senior Lecturer Paul McDonagh-Smith speaks with Joe McKendrick of Forbes about the ongoing discussions about AI safety guidelines. “While ensuring safety is crucial, especially for frontier AI models, there is also a need to strike a balance where AI is a catalyst for innovation without putting our organizations and broader society at risk,” explains McDonagh-Smith. 

Profs. Canan Dagdeviren and Hugh Herr speak with CNN discuss their work aimed at empowering patients and doctors. Inspired by her aunt’s experience with breast cancer, Dagdeviren and her students are developing new wearable devices that could help detect cancer at an earlier stage. Says Herr of his work developing prosthetics that can be controlled by the human nervous system: “There will be a point where technology is so sophisticated that we can actually rebuild limbs after amputation that will be as good and, ultimately, they will be better than intact biological limbs.” Herr adds that in the future he hopes “the conversation will not be about human limitation anymore. It will be about human ability and human expression.”

Writing for MarketWatch, Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, emphasizes that the dockworker strike was “emblematic of broader shifts in the American workforce and the integration of technology in the workplace. As older generations retire and younger ones seek more flexible, technology-driven careers, traditional industries must adapt or be left behind.”

On October 8, the MIT Museum is hosting a “Techno, Art, and Music Robots talk with artist and engineer Moritz Simon Geist,” reports The Boston Globe. The talk will focus on “the intersection of music and robotics,” writes The Boston Globe. 

Prof. David Autor speaks with Washington Post reporter Cat Zakrzewski about AI automation in the workforce. Autor notes that when it comes to AI’s impact on the labor market the “concern should not be the number of jobs. We're actually running out of workers, not running out of jobs because of our demographics, but whether we have jobs that reward people's expertise and knowledge rather than jobs that displace expertise and knowledge and don't leave people with a viable, highly paid thing to do.”

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. 

Prof. David Autor speaks with Washington Post reporter Cat Zakrzewski about the anticipated impact of AI in various industries. “We are just learning how to use AI and what it's good for, and it will take a while to figure out how to use it really productively,” says Autor. 

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." 

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.”