Prof. Max Tegmark speaks with Guardian reporter Steve Rose about the potential of artificial intelligence. “The positive, optimistic scenario is that we responsibly develop superintelligence in a way that allows us to control it and benefit from it,” says Tegmark. “If we can build and control superintelligence, we can quickly go from being limited by our own stupidity to being limited by the laws of physics. It could be the greatest empowerment moment in human history.”
MIT Schwarzman College of Computing Dean Daniel Huttenlocher discusses how artificial intelligence has impacted print media at the Aspen Ideas Festival, reports John Frank for Axios. “Most of us grew up in a world where the word print was something that was authoritative,” says Huttenlocher, of how people will need to be on the lookout for misinformation.
MIT Schwarzman College of Computing Dean Daniel Huttenlocher speaks at the Aspen Ideas Festival on how to regulate AI while maximizing its positive impact, reports NBC. “I think when we think about regulation [of artificial intelligence] we need to think about this in the ways we’ve traditionally thought about things – risk, reward, tradeoffs – and that tends to be domain specific,” says Huttenlocher. “It’s hard to have sort of an abstract notion of this new technology and what the risk [and] reward is across all domains.”
Prof. Deb Roy speaks with CNBC reporter Deirdre Bosa about “the relationship between machine-leaning technology and humans.”
Writing for Bloomberg, Prof. Thomas Malone about the need to adapt copyright laws in the era of generative AI. “One promising possibility is to introduce a new body of law based on the premise that different legal protections are appropriate when these massive AI systems can process vast amounts of information far faster and less expensively than humans can,” writs Malone.
Prof. Marzyeh Ghassemi speaks with Yahoo News reporter Rebecca Corey about the benefits and risks posed by the use of AI tools in health care. “I think the problem is when you try to naively replace humans with AI in health care settings, you get really poor results,” says Ghassemi. “You should be looking at it as an augmentation tool, not as a replacement tool.”
Prof. Kevin Esvelt and his students have found that language-generating AI models could make it easier to create pandemic potential pathogens, reports Kelsey Piper for Vox.
Writing for The Conversation, postdoc Ziv Epstein SM ’19, PhD ’23, graduate student Robert Mahari and Jessica Fjeld of Harvard Law School explore how the use of generative AI will impact creative work. “The ways in which existing laws are interpreted or reformed – and whether generative AI is appropriately treated as the tool it is – will have real consequences for the future of creative expression,” the authors note.
“Power and Progress,” a new book by Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof. Simon Johnson, has been named one of the best new books on economics by the Financial Times. “The authors’ nuanced take on technological development provides insights on how we can ensure the coming AI revolution leads to widespread benefits for the many, not just the tech bros,” writes Tej Parikh.
Writing for The New York Times, Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof Simon Johnson make the case that “rather than machine intelligence, what we need is ‘machine usefulness,’ which emphasizes the ability of computers to augment human capabilities. This would be a much more fruitful direction for increasing productivity. By empowering workers and reinforcing human decision making in the production process, it also would strengthen social forces that can stand up to big tech companies.”
Graduate student Kartik Chandra writes for Inside Higher Education about how many of this year’s college graduates are feeling anxiety about new AI technologies. “We scientists are still debating the details of how AI is and is not humanlike in its use of language,” writes Chandra. “But let’s not forget the big picture: unlike AI, you speak because you have something to say.”
Neil Thompson, director of the FutureTech research project at MIT CSAIL and a principal investigator MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, speaks with Politico reporter Mohar Chatterjee about generative AI, the pace of computer progress and the need for the U.S. to invest more in developing the future of computing. “We need to make sure we have good secure factories that can produce cutting-edge semiconductors,” says Thompson. “The CHIPS Act covers that. And people are starting to invest in some of these post-CMOS technologies — but it just needs to be much more. These are incredibly important technologies.”
Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof. Aleksander Mądry join GBH’s Greater Boston to explore how AI can be regulated and safely integrated into our lives. “With much of our society driven by informational spaces — in particular social media and online media in general — AI and, in particular, generative AI accelerates a lot of problems like misinformation, spam, spear phishing and blackmail,” Mądry explains. Acemoglu adds that he feels AI reforms should be approached “more broadly so that AI researchers actually work in using these technologies in human-friendly ways, trying to make humans more empowered and more productive.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with VOX Talks host Tim Phillips about his new book written with Prof. Simon Johnson, “Power and Progress.” The book explores “how we can redirect the path of innovation,” Phillips explains.
MIT researchers have developed a new method to make chatbots more factual, reports Gerrit De Vynck for The Washington Post. “The researchers proposed using different chatbots to produce multiple answers to the same question and then letting them debate each other until one answer won out,” explains Vynck. “The researchers found using this ‘society of minds’ method made them more factual.”