Browsing: AI News & Trends

When we hear about automation and artificial intelligence replacing jobs, it may seem like a tsunami of technology is going to wipe out workers broadly, in the name of greater efficiency. But a study co-authored by an MIT economist shows markedly different dynamics in the U.S. since 1980. Rather than implement automation in pursuit of maximal productivity, firms have often used automation to replace employees who specifically receive a “wage premium,” earning higher salaries than other comparable workers. In practice, that means automation has frequently reduced the earnings of non-college-educated workers who had obtained better salaries than most employees with similar…

Microsoft, Google DeepMind and Elon Musk’s xAI have offered to let the U.S. government access new AI models ahead of their general release, which sets up a new phase in Silicon Valley’s often fractious relationship with the US government’s fear of AI threats, based on the latest report of AI companies offering models to U.S. officials in the name of security review, in the hopes that government analysts can vet frontier AI systems for security threats like cyberattacks and military use before it is exposed for public consumption by developers and users, and, inevitably, those who should have no business…

Gabriele Farina grew up in a small town in a hilly winemaking region of northern Italy. Neither of his parents had college degrees, and although both were convinced they “didn’t understand math,” Farina says, they bought him the technical books he wanted and didn’t discourage him from attending the science-oriented, rather than the classical, high school.By around age 14, Farina had focused on an idea that would prove foundational to his career.“I was fascinated very early by the idea that a machine could make predictions or decisions so much better than humans,” he says. “The fact that human-made mathematics and…

President Donald Trump’s White House is contemplating whether the US government should be allowed to screen the most powerful AI models before they become available to the public, a significant shift from his previously laissez-faire approach to the AI industry.In the most recent story about White House AI model vetting, the debate boils down to whether the government should intervene before frontier systems with coding or cyber capabilities get distributed to the public. That’s a not a subtle change. That is Washington asking whether the arms race to AI has evolved to the stage where ‘ship it and see what…

Now actors and writers are supposed to be human. As the Academy released its rules for the 99th Academy Awards, the organization declared that any movies with “AI generated actors” or “AI written screenplays” would be ineligible for acting or writing prizes (but otherwise still eligible).So what do you do, exactly, in a time when we can no longer be sure if AI is a tool or a threat? Hollywood is going to have to make that call soon. The Academy released its latest statement on what’s eligible for an Oscar, including how they’re going to approach AI actors and…

The human brain remains one of the most fascinating and perplexing mysteries in medicine. Scientists still struggle to match neurological activity with brain function and detect problems early, slowing efforts to treat neurological disorders and other diseases.Beacon Biosignals is working to make sense of the brain by monitoring its activity while people sleep. The company, which was founded by Jake Donoghue PhD ’19 and former MIT researcher Jarrett Revels, developed a lightweight headband that uses electroencephalogram (EEG) technology to measure brain activity while people enjoy their normal sleep routines at home. Those data are processed by machine-learning algorithms to monitor…

When she was a child, MIT senior Olivia Honeycutt would spend summers on her grandparents’ farm in rural Alabama outside Birmingham. The practical and cultural differences between farm and city life became more pronounced by comparison. “Life and the way we lived it slowed down on the farm,” she says. “It was a nice change of pace.” These days, Honeycutt, a double major in computation and cognition and linguistics, still finds herself moving between several worlds that are simultaneously connected and distinctly different. Her research interests lie at the intersection of human thinking and awareness, language learning and acquisition, technology, and social group…

“The thing that really struck me when I came to MIT and strikes me every single day is the stuff that’s going on here is amazing. The science, the engineering… every day I hear something that makes my jaw drop,” remarked President Sally Kornbluth during a live discussion with Lizzie O’Leary of Slate’s “What Next: TBD” podcast.Kornbluth spoke about everything from the importance of curiosity-driven science and why basic science is critical to our nation’s future, to AI and education, and even bravely joined O’Leary in a rendition of the Williams College song, “The Mountains,” in honor of their shared…

DeepSeek’s latest AI model was poised for a major launch. And yet, the markets did not react as expected to the release of DeepSeek’s V4 preview, despite the Chinese startup making technical headway with its latest software.Investors are less likely to swoon at the announcement of a more powerful, more efficient, and less expensive AI model. They know what we mean, and they’re waiting for it to do something impressive.This is not to imply that DeepSeek failed at its most recent endeavor, because it clearly did not. While its latest model has outperformed predecessors, it still solidifies China’s position in…

In today’s hospitals and clinics, a dermatologist may use an artificial intelligence model for classifying skin lesions to assess if the lesion is at risk of developing into a cancer or if it is benign. But if the model is biased toward certain skin tones, it could fail to identify a high-risk patient.Perhaps one of the best known and most persistent challenges that AI research continues to reckon with is bias. Bias is often discussed in relation to training data, but model architecture can also contain and amplify bias, negatively influencing model performance in real-world settings. In high-stakes medical scenarios,…