Technology and society

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Measure by measure, studying society accurately

Let’s agree at the outset the world is a complicated place, and social scientists have exacting jobs when it comes to measuring civic phenomena with precision. After all, even careful studies raise follow-up questions: How much do their findings apply in other settings? Do conclusions about politics in one country apply to other countries? If you’re […]

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Ila Kumar: Innovating with communities

Before Ila Kumar thinks about how to build technology, she asks a different question: What is the context that technology will operate in, and who needs to be involved in the design? For Kumar, meaningful innovation doesn’t result from engineers or designers working in isolation. Instead, she believes the best innovations emerge when the people who

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When AI art has no author: Study finds generated images often can’t be traced to training data

When an artificial intelligence image generator produces a portrait, whose work went into it? The question sits at the center of lawsuits, licensing deals, and proposed regulations worldwide. Artists want credit. Companies want clarity. Policymakers want a way to assign responsibility.New work from a team of researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

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The benefits of medical AI assistance vary based on user expertise

A one-size-fits-all approach likely isn’t the best strategy when designing artificial intelligence systems that assist users in disease diagnosis.A new study by researchers at MIT and elsewhere found that, while AI assistance generally improved the accuracy of non-experts and clinicians in diagnosing skin diseases, AI explainability methods had different impacts depending on the users’ knowledge

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Connecting research to policy on Capitol Hill

This spring, 25 MIT students and postdocs traveled to Washington to meet with congressional staffers and advocate for sustained federal investment in scientific research. With recent cuts to National Science Foundation programs and continued uncertainty surrounding the federal research budget, these conversations were especially timely. Over the course of just two days, participants met with 62

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Following the questions where they lead

Ever since she was a child playing on her family’s farmland in Wisconsin, Bailey Flanigan was guided by her own selective, yet wide-ranging, curiosity. Describing her young self as spirited and a bit unruly, she directed her energies to everything from building booby traps to doing experimental construction projects to exploring an intense interest in

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3 Questions: Neural transparency and the future of AI design

Millions of people are now designing their own personalized artificial intelligence companions, yet most have little idea how those creations will actually behave. In a new paper, MIT Media Lab Assistant Professor Pat Pataranutaporn and his graduate student researchers Anthony Baez and Sheer Karny introduce “neural transparency,” a tool that lets everyday users glimpse inside

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How MIT students are helping to prevent cyberattacks

In May 2019, the government of Baltimore, Maryland, fell into chaos. Cybercriminals had locked the city out of many of its critical files and demanded payment to decrypt them. The city refused to pay ransom. The attack incapacitated a swath of services, including real estate transactions and bill payment, and recovery costs soared into the

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Toward a future that preserves benefits of neurotechnology for all

As advanced medical technology gets closer to hitting consumer markets, the need for guardrails on protected usage should increase. What might begin as a neural implant to aid in communication could become a device used to police one’s innermost thoughts.Intrigued by the far-reaching benefits and risks of neural implants, Rachel Sava, a PhD candidate in

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David Autor named head of the Department of Economics

David Autor, the Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, has been named head of the Department of Economics, effective July 1.“David is a world-class labor economist,” says Agustín Rayo, the Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “He is also an individual of wisdom

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