The neural network artificial intelligence models used in applications like medical image processing and speech recognition perform operations on hugely complex data structures that require an enormous amount of computation to process. This is one reason deep-learning models consume so much energy. To improve the efficiency of AI models, MIT researchers created an automated system…
In the week since a Chinese AI model called DeepSeek became a household name, a dizzying number of narratives have gained steam, with varying degrees of accuracy: that the model is collecting your personal data (maybe); that it will upend AI as we know it (too soon to tell—but do read my colleague Will’s story…
Every cell in your body contains the same genetic sequence, yet each cell expresses only a subset of those genes. These cell-specific gene expression patterns, which ensure that a brain cell is different from a skin cell, are partly determined by the three-dimensional structure of the genetic material, which controls the accessibility of each gene….
OpenAI is feeling the heat from DeepSeek. On Thursday, Microsoft announced that it’s rolling OpenAI’s reasoning model o1 out to its Copilot users, and now OpenAI is releasing a new reasoning model, o3-mini, to people who use the free version of ChatGPT. This will mark the first time that the vast majority of people will…
When the Chinese firm DeepSeek dropped a large language model called R1 last week, it sent shock waves through the US tech industry. Not only did R1 match the best of the homegrown competition, it was built for a fraction of the cost—and given away for free. The US stock market lost $1 trillion, President…
If you’ve watched cartoons like Tom and Jerry, you’ll recognize a common theme: An elusive target avoids his formidable adversary. This game of “cat-and-mouse” — whether literal or otherwise — involves pursuing something that ever-so-narrowly escapes you at each try. In a similar way, evading persistent hackers is a continuous challenge for cybersecurity teams. Keeping…
Imagine a boombox that tracks your every move and suggests music to match your personal dance style. That’s the idea behind “Be the Beat,” one of several projects from MIT course 4.043/4.044 (Interaction Intelligence), taught by Marcelo Coelho in the Department of Architecture, that were presented at the 38th annual NeurIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems)…
A home robot trained to perform household tasks in a factory may fail to effectively scrub the sink or take out the trash when deployed in a user’s kitchen, since this new environment differs from its training space. To avoid this, engineers often try to match the simulated training environment as closely as possible with…
January has been notable for the number of important announcements in AI. For me, two stand out: the US government’s support for the Stargate Project, a giant data center costing $500 billion, with investments coming from Oracle, Softbank, and OpenAI; and DeepSeek’s release of its R1 reasoning model, trained at an estimated cost of roughly…
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Just a week in, the AI sector has already seen its first battle of wits under the new Trump administration. The clash stems from two key pieces of news: the announcement of…