Author: Ms. R.

From cameras to self-driving cars, many of today’s technologies depend on artificial intelligence to extract meaning from visual information. Today’s AI technology has artificial neural networks at its core, and most of the time we can trust these AI computer vision systems to see things the way we do — but sometimes they falter. According to MIT and IBM research scientists, one way to improve computer vision is to instruct the artificial neural networks that they rely on to……

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Understanding artificial intelligence and how it relates to matters of national security has become a top priority for military and government leaders in recent years. A new three-day custom program entitled “Artificial Intelligence for National Security Leaders” — AI4NSL for short — aims to educate leaders who may not have a technical background on the basics of AI, machine learning, and data science, and how these topics intersect with national security. “National security fundamentally is about two things: getting information out……

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Successful relationships take time to develop, with both parties investing energy and resources and fostering mutual trust and understanding. The MIT Portugal Program (MPP), a strategic partnership between MIT, Portuguese universities and research institutions, and the Portuguese government, is a case in point. Portugal’s inaugural partnership with a U.S. university, MPP was established in 2006 as a collaboration between MIT and the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, or FCT). Since then, the program……

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Before joining the Lifelong Kindergarten group in the MIT Media Lab, Cecilé Sadler saw computer engineering and community service as separate aspects of her life. Alongside her bachelor’s and master’s work in computer engineering at North Carolina State and Duke University, respectively, Sadler also spent a lot of time working with young people through local Boys and Girls Clubs and public schools. Now, she blends both of her passions as a graduate student in the Program in Media Arts……

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Computers possess two remarkable capabilities with respect to images: They can both identify them and generate them anew. Historically, these functions have stood separate, akin to the disparate acts of a chef who is good at creating dishes (generation), and a connoisseur who is good at tasting dishes (recognition). Yet, one can’t help but wonder: What would it take to orchestrate a harmonious union between these two distinctive capacities? Both chef and connoisseur share a common understanding in the……

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A team of researchers led by Feng Zhang at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has uncovered the first programmable RNA-guided system in eukaryotes — organisms that include fungi, plants, and animals. In a study published today in Nature, the team describes how the system is based on a protein called Fanzor. They showed that Fanzor proteins use RNA as a guide to target DNA precisely, and that Fanzors can……

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When Erik Duhaime PhD ’19 was working on his thesis in MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence, he noticed his wife, then a medical student, spending hours studying on apps that offered flash cards and quizzes. His research had shown that, as a group, medical students could classify skin lesions more accurately than professional dermatologists; the trick was to continually measure each student’s performance on cases with known answers, throw out the opinions of people who were bad at the……

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