Scott Shambaugh didn’t think twice when he denied an AI agent’s request to contribute to matplotlib, a software library that he helps manage. Like many open-source projects, matplotlib has been overwhelmed by a glut of AI code contributions, and so Shambaugh and his fellow maintainers have instituted a policy that all AI-written code must be reviewed and submitted by a human. He rejected the request and went to bed.  That’s when things got weird. Shambaugh woke up in the middle of the night, checked his email, and saw that the agent had responded to him, writing a blog post titled […]

The transformational potential of AI is already well established. Enterprise use cases are building momentum and organizations are transitioning from pilot projects to AI in production. Companies are no longer just talking about AI; they are redirecting budgets and resources to make it happen. Many are already experimenting with agentic AI, which promises new levels of automation. Yet, the road to full operational success is still uncertain for many. And, while AI experimentation is everywhere, enterprise-wide adoption remains elusive. Without integrated data and systems, stable automated workflows, and governance models, AI initiatives can get stuck in pilots and struggle to […]

Many engineering challenges come down to the same headache — too many knobs to turn and too few chances to test them. Whether tuning a power grid or designing a safer vehicle, each evaluation can be costly, and there may be hundreds of variables that could matter. Consider car safety design. Engineers must integrate thousands of parts, and many design choices can affect how a vehicle performs in a collision. Classic optimization tools could start to struggle when searching for the best combination. MIT researchers developed a new approach that rethinks how a classic method, known as Bayesian optimization, can […]