By Rufus Rock, UCL; Tim O’Reilly, UCL; Ilan Strauss, UCL; and Mariana Mazzucato, UCL This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Time and again, leading scientists, technologists, and philosophers have made spectacularly terrible guesses about the direction of innovation. Even Einstein was not immune, claiming, “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy…
Since ChatGPT was released, we’re interacting with AI tools more directly—and regularly—than ever before. But interacting with robots, by way of contrast, is still a rarity for most. If you don’t undergo complex surgery or work in logistics, the most advanced robot you encounter in your daily life might still be a vacuum cleaner (if…
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Deepfakes are getting good. Like, really good. Earlier this month I went to a studio in East London to get myself digitally cloned by the AI video startup Synthesia. They made…
The return of spring in the Northern Hemisphere touches off tornado season. A tornado’s twisting funnel of dust and debris seems an unmistakable sight. But that sight can be obscured to radar, the tool of meteorologists. It’s hard to know exactly when a tornado has formed, or even why. A new dataset could hold answers….
Julie Shah ’04, SM ’06, PhD ’11, the H.N. Slater Professor in Aeronautics and Astronautics, has been named the new head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro), effective May 1. “Julie brings an exceptional record of visionary and interdisciplinary leadership to this role. She has made substantial technical contributions in the field of…
How can MIT’s community leverage generative AI to support learning and work on campus and beyond? At MIT’s Festival of Learning 2024, faculty and instructors, students, staff, and alumni exchanged perspectives about the digital tools and innovations they’re experimenting with in the classroom. Panelists agreed that generative AI should be used to scaffold — not…
MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. After weeks of drawn-out congressional debate over how much the United States should spend on conflicts abroad, President Joe Biden signed a $95.3 billion aid package into…
Large language models are famous for their ability to make things up—in fact, it’s what they’re best at. But their inability to tell fact from fiction has left many businesses wondering if using them is worth the risk. A new tool created by Cleanlab, an AI startup spun out of a quantum computing lab at…
I’m stressed and running late, because what do you wear for the rest of eternity? This makes it sound like I’m dying, but it’s the opposite. I am, in a way, about to live forever, thanks to the AI video startup Synthesia. For the past several years, the company has produced AI-generated avatars, but today…
The role of AI prompt engineer attracted attention for its high-six-figure salaries when it emerged in early 2023. Companies define it in different ways, but its principal aim is to help a company integrate AI into its operations. Danai Myrtzani of Sleed, a digital marketing agency in Greece, describes herself as more prompter than engineer….