Researchers from MIT and elsewhere estimate that “while 36% of U.S. private sector jobs were technically ‘exposed’ to automation through computer vision… it would only make economic sense for firms to pursue automation for 8% of all private sector jobs—just a quarter of those jobs labelled ‘exposed,’” report François Candelon, David Zuluaga Martínez and Etienne Cavin for Fortune.
Prof. Sara Beery speaks with TechCrunch reporter Kyle Wiggers about the use of AI tools in the advancement of science. “Most science isn’t possible to do entirely virtually — there is frequently a significant component of the scientific process that is physical, like collecting new data and conducting experiments in the lab,” explains Beery.
Prof. Ryan Williams speaks with New Scientist reporter Matthew Sparkes about his finding concerning the relationship between the amount of memory a computation requires and how long it takes, a discovery that has “wowed computer scientists.” Says Williams of the discovery: “It kind of shakes my world view. I’m still just shocked that it even exists.”
Principal Research Scientist Andrew McAfee co-founded Workhelix, a “tech-enabled service startup that works with enterprises to better understand and monitor AI automation at their companies,” reports Rebecca Szkutak for Tech Crunch. “Workhelix breaks down a company’s employee positions into specific job functions and tasks and scores each task for its suitability for AI adoption,” explains Szkutak. “This helps companies build roadmaps for how and where to adopt AI and gives enterprises a way to monitor if the AI they adopted is working.”
Writing for Project Syndicate, Prof. Daron Acemoglu addresses the potential benefits and risks posed by AI advancements. “AI, properly developed and used, can indeed make us better – not just by providing ‘a bicycle for the mind,’ but by truly expanding our ability to think and act with greater understanding, independent of coercion or manipulation,” explains Acemoglu. “Yet owing to its profound potential, AI also represents one of the gravest threats that humanity has ever faced. The risk is not only (or even mainly) that superintelligent machines will someday rule over us; it is that AI will undermine our ability to learn, experiment, share knowledge, and derive meaning from our activities.”
Steve Mann PhD '97 has been awarded the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award for his contributions toward the development of virtual reality, augmented reality, wearable technology, eXtended Reality products and services, reports Thomas Coughlin for Forbes. “Widely regarded as ‘the father of wearable computing,’” Mann “invented, designed, and built the world’s first smartwatch capable of downloading and running a wide variety of apps for health, well-being, and fitness tracking, ushering in a new era of personal health,” explains Coughlin.
A new study by researchers at MIT has found that “while highly skilled workers reported a 40% surge in performance when artificial intelligence was used within the boundary of its capabilities, overreliance on AI resulted in a performance drop of 19%,” reports Chris Callagher for USA Today.
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with New York Times reporter Jeff Sommer about the anticipated impact of future AI on various industries. “There is a lot of hype in the industry,” says Acemoglu. While some AI companies have “impressive achievements,” Acemoglu adds that many financial and economic calculations were being based on mere “projections into the future that are sometimes exaggerated.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Bloomberg reporter Jeran Wittenstein about the implications of new AI advancements on areas such as productivity, the labor market and economic growth. “I hope I’m wrong, I hope we get some productivity growth. That would be really cool,” says Acemoglu. “But I don’t see it yet.”
Prof. Max Tegmark speaks with CNBC “Beyond The Valley” podcast hosts Arjun Kharpal and Tom Chitty about concerns surrounding the future of AI systems. “I think, on an optimistic note here, we can have almost everything that we’re excited about with AI,” says Tegmark, “if we simply insist on having some basic safety standards before people can sell powerful AI systems.”
Postdoctoral Associate Pat Pataranutaporn speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Heidi Mitchell about his work developing Future You, an online interactive AI platform that “allows users to create a virtual older self—a chatbot that looks like an aged version of the person and is based on an AI text system known as a large language model, then personalized with information that the user puts in.” Pataranutaporn explains: “I want to encourage people to think in the long term, to be less anxious about an unknown future so they can live more authentically today.”
Drew Houston '06, founder and CEO of Dropbox, speaks with NBC Boston reporter Ashton Jackson about his work creating and developing the cloud storage platform. "I started Dropbox more out of just personal frustration," says Houston. "It really felt like something only I was super interested in as far as file syncing, and focusing on one customer, which was myself."
MIT engineers have developed “two new control techniques that have enabled them to achieve a world-record single-qubit fidelity of 99.998 percent using a superconducting qubit called fluxonium,” reports Aman Tripathi for Interesting Engineering. “This breakthrough marks a significant step towards the realization of practical quantum computing,” Tripathi notes.
Prof. Pattie Maes speaks with Wired reporter Reece Rogers about the potential benefits and challenges posed by AI agents. “The way these systems are built, right now, they're optimized from a technical point of view, an engineering point of view,” says Maes. “But, they're not at all optimized for human-design issues.”
Noubar Afeyan PhD '87 and a member of the MIT Corporation speaks with Boston Globe reporter Aaron Pressman about the future of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and “superintelligent” AI. “Humans have long developed tools, microscopes, mass spectrometers, you name it, to help them be able to understand nature better,” says Afeyan. “Now one of the tools, in the case of machine [learning], we’re elevating to the level of a whole new intelligence.”