Forbes contributor Dipka Bhambhani spotlights a new study by MIT researchers that examines the causes of cost overruns and delays in nuclear power developments, which the researchers found could have been “averted by building plants in factories and then installing them on site.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Guardian reporter Lauren Aratani about the impact of automation on inequality. While AI has “tremendous potential for making humans more productive,” Acemoglu notes that it also “has been a major driver in the increase in inequality.”
Forbes contributor Adi Gaskell highlights a new study by CSAIL researchers that underscores the importance of foreign-born scientists when it comes to breakthroughs in AI. The researchers noted that “If we want the United States to continue to be ground zero for computer science, we need to make sure that our policies make it easy to continue to bring host international researchers to join our institutions.”
Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, speaks with Annie Nova of CNBC about the Task Force’s new report, which lays out recommendations for ensuring Americans are able to secure good jobs in an era of automation. “We’re suggesting that people have access to affordable education and training,” says Reynolds. “I think there’s a real opportunity to help transition people and educate workers without four-year degrees.”
Financial Times reporter Henry Sanderson spotlights Prof. Donald Sadoway’s work developing new battery chemistries that would allow batteries to store energy for longer than six hours.
Axios reporter Bryan Walsh writes that a new report by MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future makes policy recommendations for ensuring American workers are able to secure good jobs. “If we deploy automation in the same labor market system we have now," says Prof. David Mindell, "we're going to end up with the same results.”
Three years after President L. Rafael Reif delivered an “intellectual call to arms” to examine the impact of technology on jobs, the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future has published its final set of recommendations. “In an extraordinarily comprehensive effort, they included labor market analysis, field studies and policy suggestions for changes in skills-training programs, the tax code, labor laws and minimum-wage rates,” writes Steve Lohr for The New York Times.
Fast Company reporter KC Ifeanyi writes about “Coded Bias,” which explores how graduate student Joy Buolamwini’s “groundbreaking discovery and subsequent studies on the biases in facial recognition software against darker-skinned individuals and women led to some of the biggest companies including Amazon and IBM rethinking their practices.”
New York Times reporter Devika Girish reviews “Coded Bias,” a new documentary that chronicles graduate student Joy Buolamwini’s work uncovering how many AI systems can perpetuate race and gender-based inequities. “When you think of A.I., it’s forward-looking,” says Buolamwini. “But A.I. is based on data, and data is a reflection of our history.”
Quartz reporter Nicolás Rivero highlights a study co-authored by Prof. David Rand that examines the effectiveness of labeling fake news on social media platforms. “I think most people working in this area agree that if you put a warning label on something, that will make people believe and share it less,” says Rand. “But most stuff doesn’t get labeled, so that’s a major practical limitation of this approach.”
Fox News reporter Kayla Rivas features Prof. Richard Larson’s work developing a new algorithm that could be used to help more accurately pinpoint sources of Covid-19 infections in sewer systems. The algorithm could be used to help “toggle between normal testing to an emergency schedule to locate asymptomatic cases fast before they infect others.”
BuzzFeed reporter Arianna Rebolini spotlights Prof. Sherry Turkle’s book, “”Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.” Rebolini writes that in her book, Turkle “argues that the increasing integration of the internet into our daily lives has led to a growing sense of isolation — that the connections we make on social media don’t function as authentic communication.”
Forbes contributor Adi Gaskell writes that CSAIL researchers have developed a machine learning system that can determine whether a task is best performed by a human or AI. The researchers developed the system to be “capable of learning and adapting as it goes, such that it can identify,” Gaskell explains, “when the expert isn't available or whether they have a certain level of experience, before choosing whether to defer to them.”
Forbes reporter Eva Amsen writes about a new study by researchers from the Media Lab that explores how to credit art developed by AI systems. The researches found that “credit for AI-generated art all depends on how we think and talk about the role of AI.”
IEEE Spectrum reporter Daniel Dern spotlights the work of alumna Merryl Gross, an information architect and senior UX designer for a company that develops web-based software that helps nurses and doctors manage the care of patients with dialysis and other conditions. Gross explains that user design is basically, “applying human psychology to the design of made objects.”