Browsing: AI News & Trends

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to help optimize decision-making in high-stakes settings. For instance, an autonomous system can identify a power distribution strategy that minimizes costs while keeping voltages stable.But while these AI-driven outputs may be technically optimal, are they fair? What if a low-cost power distribution strategy leaves disadvantaged neighborhoods more vulnerable to outages than higher-income areas?To help stakeholders quickly pinpoint potential ethical dilemmas before deployment, MIT researchers developed an automated evaluation method that balances the interplay between measurable outcomes, like cost or reliability, and qualitative or subjective values, such as fairness.   The system separates objective evaluations from user-defined…

AI has always been a bit of a runaway train. It’s exciting. It’s cool. It’s a bit irresponsible. But the train is finally starting to hit the brakes. And depending on which side of the tracks you are on, that is either a good thing… or a very bad thing. So let’s start with regulation. The government is not just looking on. It’s not just dipping its toes in the water. It’s jumping in and trying to make waves. Check out the following articles to see what I mean. The argument is heating up. Safety and control are now on…

Designers, makers, and others often use 3D printing to rapidly prototype a range of functional objects, from movie props to medical devices. Accurate print previews are essential so users know a fabricated object will perform as expected.But previews generated by most 3D-printing software focus on function rather than aesthetics. A printed object may end up with a different color, texture, or shading than the user expected, resulting in multiple reprints that waste time, effort, and material.To help users envision how a fabricated object will look, researchers from MIT and elsewhere developed an easy-to-use preview tool that puts appearance first.Users upload…

In biology, defects are generally bad. But in materials science, defects can be intentionally tuned to give materials useful new properties. Today, atomic-scale defects are carefully introduced during the manufacturing process of products like steel, semiconductors, and solar cells to help improve strength, control electrical conductivity, optimize performance, and more.But even as defects have become a powerful tool, accurately measuring different types of defects and their concentrations in finished products has been challenging, especially without cutting open or damaging the final material. Without knowing what defects are in their materials, engineers risk making products that perform poorly or have unintended…

Apple just took an understated step that speaks volumes. No big event. No big announcement. A hiring.Apple hired a Google executive, Lilian Rincon, who previously worked on AI products at the tech giant. This comes after the Cupertino-based tech giant partnered with Google’s Gemini AI to improve its digital assistant, Siri.It does sound a little odd. Apple and Google. Working together? That’s not really Apple’s historical playbook.But, frankly, it kind of makes sense.AI has been a runaway train over the last year. Microsoft, Google, startups, etc., are all moving at a frenetic pace. Apple, not so much. Not “not at…

Proteins are far more than nutrients we track on a food label. Present in every cell of our bodies, they work like nature’s molecular machines. They walk, stretch, bend, and flex to do their jobs, pumping blood, fighting disease, building tissue, and many other jobs too small for the eye to see. Their power doesn’t come from shape alone, but from how they move. In recent years, artificial intelligence has allowed scientists to design entirely new protein structures not found in nature tailored for specific functions, such as binding to viruses, or mimicking the mechanical properties of silk for sustainable materials.…

Growing up in Mexico and Texas, Mariano Salcedo ’25 couldn’t readily indulge his passion for creating music. “There are no bands in Mexican public schools,” he says. While some families could pay for instruments and lessons, others, like Salcedo’s, were less fortunate.“I’ve always loved music,” he continues. “I was a listener.” Salcedo, the Alex Rigopulos (1992) Fellow in Music Technology and Computation, earned an BS in Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making from MIT, where he explored signal processing in machine learning and how a classical understanding of signals can inform how we understand AI. Now he’s one of five master’s students in…

Inside a giant autonomous warehouse, hundreds of robots dart down aisles as they collect and distribute items to fulfill a steady stream of customer orders. In this busy environment, even small traffic jams or minor collisions can snowball into massive slowdowns.To avoid such an avalanche of inefficiencies, researchers from MIT and the tech firm Symbotic developed a new method that automatically keeps a fleet of robots moving smoothly. Their method learns which robots should go first at each moment, based on how congestion is forming, and adapts to prioritize robots that are about to get stuck. In this way, the…

The next time you’re scrolling your phone, take a moment to appreciate the feat: The seemingly mundane act is possible thanks to the coordination of 34 muscles, 27 joints, and over 100 tendons and ligaments in your hand. Indeed, our hands are the most nimble parts of our bodies. Mimicking their many nuanced gestures has been a longstanding challenge in robotics and virtual reality.Now, MIT engineers have designed an ultrasound wristband that precisely tracks a wearer’s hand movements in real-time. The wristband produces ultrasound images of the wrist’s muscles, tendons, and ligaments as the hand moves, and is paired with…

Each spring, river herring populations migrate from Massachusetts coastal waters to begin their annual journey up rivers and streams to freshwater spawning habitat. River herring have faced severe population declines over the past several decades, and their migration is extensively monitored across the region, primarily through traditional visual counting and volunteer-based programs. Monitoring fish movement and understanding population dynamics are essential for informing conservation efforts and supporting fisheries management. With the annual herring run getting underway this month, researchers and resource managers once again take on the challenge of counting and estimating the migrating fish population as accurately as possible. A team of…