Axios reporter Ina Fried spotlights a new report by Prof. Emeritus Stuart Madnick that finds “2.6 billion personal records have been exposed in data breaches over the past two years and that number continues to grow.” Additionally, Madnick found that” “Data breaches in the US through the first nine months of the year are already 20% higher than for all of 2022.”
Boston Globe reporters Aaron Pressman and Jon Chesto spotlight Liquid AI, a new startup founded by MIT researchers that is developing an AI system that relies on neural-network models that are “much simpler and require significantly less computer power to train and operate” than generative AI systems. “You need a fraction of the cost of developing generative AI, and the carbon footprint is much lower,” explains Liquid AI CEO Ramin Hasani, a research affiliate at CSAIL. “You get the same capabilities with a much smaller representation.”
Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, and research affiliates Ramin Hasani, Mathias Lechner, and Alexander Amini have co-founded Liquid AI, a startup building a general-purpose AI system powered by a liquid neural network, reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “Accountability and safety of large AI models is of paramount importance,” says Hasani. “Liquid AI offers more capital efficient, reliable, explainable and capable machine learning models for both domain-specific and generative AI applications."
Postdoctoral associate Wen Shuhao and postdoctoral fellows Ma Jian and Lai Lipeng co-founded Xtalpi, a biotech startup that uses “artificial intelligence to find chemical compounds that could be developed into new drugs,” reports Zinnia Lee for Forbes. “By combining AI, quantum physics, cloud computing and robotic automation, Xtalpi said it helps increase the efficiency and success rate of identifying novel drug compounds,” writes Lee. “The company has recently expanded into discovering new chemical compounds for agricultural technology, cosmetics and other applications.”
Writing for Politico, MIT Prof. Armando Solar-Lezama and University of Texas at Austin Prof. Swarat Chaudhuri examine the recent executive order on AI. “Especially as new ways to train models with limited resources emerge, and as the price of computing goes down,” they write, “such regulations could start hurting the outsiders — the researchers, small companies, and other independent organizations whose work will be necessary to keep a fast-moving technology in check.”
Four faculty members from across MIT - Professors Song Han, Simon Johnson, Yoon Kim and Rosalind Picard - speak with Curiosity Stream about the opportunities and risks posed by the rapid advancements in the field of AI. “We do want to think about which human capabilities we treasure,” says Picard. She adds that during the Covid-19 pandemic, “we saw a lot of loss of people's ability to communicate with one another face-to-face when their world moved online. I think we need to be thoughtful and intentional about what we're building with the technology and whether it's diminishing who we are or enhancing it.”
Forbes contributor Lucio Ribeiro spotlights Andrew Ng MS '98 and Jaime Teevan SM '01, PhD '07 as two of eight “AI superheroes whose work is transforming technology and challenges our understanding of what’s possible.” Ng is the CEO is Landing AI, and “his efforts in educating the masses about AI through platforms like Coursera, which he co-founded, have democratized AI knowledge, bridging the gap between academia and industry,” writes Ribeiro. Teevan’s “work is focused on making AI more accessible and useful to people in their everyday lives.”
Prof. Russ Tedrake and Max Bajracharya '21 MEng '21 speak with TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater about the impact of generative AI on the future of robotics. “Generative AI has the potential to bring revolutionary new capabilities to robotics,” says Tedrake. “Not only are we able to communicate with robots in natural language, but connecting to internet-scale language and image data is giving robots a much more robust understanding and reasoning about the world.”
Prof. Héctor Beltrán speaks with Lily Jamali of Marketplace about his new book, “Code Work: Hacking across the US/México Techno-Borderlands,” which explores the culture of hackathons and entrepreneurship in Mexico. "Ultimately, it’s about difference, thinking about Silicon Valley from Mexico,” says Beltrán. "Also, from a Chicano/Latino perspective, because as I show throughout the book, there’s these connections, tensions, intersections between the Latino community in the U.S., the Latin American community, the Mexican community.”
Principal Research Scientist Andrew McAfee discussed the impact of artificial intelligence and technology on businesses at the Fortune CFO Collaborative, reports Sheryl Estrada for Fortune. Generative AI is “going to diffuse throughout the economy,” said McAfee. “It’s going to separate winners from losers, and it’s going to turbocharge the winners faster than you and I have been expecting.”
The Economist reporter Rachel Lloyd predicts a “distinct change” in topics for bestselling books in 2024. Lloyd predicts artificial intelligence will take a lead, spotlighting “The Heart and Chip: Our Bright Future with Robots,” by Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, as a leading example of the shift.
Prof. David Rand speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Christopher Mims about the impact of generative AI on the spread of misinformation. “When you show people deepfakes and generative AI, a lot of times they come out of the experiment saying, ‘I just don’t trust anything anymore,’” says Rand.
Augmental, an MIT spinoff, has created MouthPad, a tongue-controlled, computer mouse pad designed for people with disabilities, reports Zoya Hasan and Alex York for Forbes. The device is a “hands-free, custom fit mouthpiece for device control,” explains Hasan and York.
Prof. Nick Montfort speaks with Inside Higher Ed reporter Lauren Coffey about the use of AI tools in art and education. “The primary concern should be how can we provide new education, how can we inform students, artists, instructors,” says Montfort. “How can we, not so much bolt policies or create guardrails, but how can we help them understand new technologies better and their implications?”