School of Engineering

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LLMs help robots understand vague instructions and focus on key details

Imagine working at a warehouse or office sometime in the near future, and you’re asked to help a new trainee learn the basics of their job. The catch: It’s a robot. To teach them, you might want to play a game of “show and tell” — that is, physically showing how to do something a […]

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MIT in the media: Exploring how curiosity-driven science is an essential ingredient in America’s success

Over the past 80 years, America’s bold, sustained investment in scientific research, and the discoveries, ideas and innovations that flowed from it made America a world leader. The nation’s scientific leadership has been essential to our shared prosperity and national security, and delivered real benefits for all Americans.On June 16, Scientific American released a special section,

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Improving the speed and energy-efficiency of AI agents

Agentic workflows are artificial intelligence-powered software systems that chain together multiple models and external tools to tackle complicated tasks, like analyzing a video and answering questions about it.But the way these highly fragmented systems are designed and deployed often causes inefficiencies that can lead to wasted computation, energy, and cost. To improve efficiency, researchers from MIT

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Exploring the societal impacts of AI

At the recent AI and Society Forum at MIT, experts from across the Institute discussed the potential benefits and dangers of technological innovation on labor, the nature of work, civil discourse, election administration, and other topics.The event featured individual research presentations and panel discussions, as well as a musical performance exploring the use of generative artificial intelligence

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New chip could help tiny robots traverse complex environments

A new chip developed by MIT researchers could help tiny, low-power UAVs avoid obstacles as they zip around tight corners inside an industrial HVAC system to check for gas leaks.The chip allows small autonomous robots and other battery-limited devices to construct detailed 3D maps of their environments in real-time using only about as much power

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A better way to model the behavior of metal alloys

Companies working at the frontier of aerospace, energy, and computing are constantly looking for new materials to improve performance. But in order to understand how those materials will actually behave once they’re inside rockets or on computer chips, companies first have to make the material and then test it. That’s because even the most powerful

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In game theory, generalists sometimes win out over specialists

Whether you’re playing poker against a single opponent or find yourself in a bidding war over a home purchase with another prospective buyer, you are operating under conditions of imperfect information. You know what cards you’re holding in the poker game, and you also know how much above the home’s asking price you can afford,

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Could AI tell you where you left your keys?

An auto factory worker can remember the storage bin where she left a partly assembled component the night before, and quickly return to that spot to pick it up. But robots that may work side-by-side with her would struggle to develop and access this same type of “spatiotemporal” memory.Now, MIT researchers have developed a long-term

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MIT’s Initiative for New Manufacturing builds momentum

In May, the Initiative for New Manufacturing (INM) marked its first anniversary with MIT Manufacturing Week, four days of events that attracted more than 800 registrants including students, faculty, industry leaders, investors, entrepreneurs, and government officials to explore topics ranging from how companies are using AI on factory floors to the role of startups in

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When it comes to predicting people’s preferences, it pays to consider “the power of three”

In his 1927 paper, “A law of comparative judgment,” the American psychologist L. L. Thurstone proposed that when people select one option among multiple alternatives, they are picking the one that has the highest value to them, even though they cannot assign a particular number to that choice. Thurstone was a pioneer of “psychometrics” — a

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