Research that crosses the traditional boundaries of academic disciplines, and boundaries between academia, industry, and government, is increasingly widespread, and has sometimes led to the spawning of significant new disciplines. But Munther Dahleh, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, says that such multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary work often suffers from a number…
Suppose you were shown that an artificial intelligence tool offers accurate predictions about some stocks you own. How would you feel about using it? Now, suppose you are applying for a job at a company where the HR department uses an AI system to screen resumes. Would you be comfortable with that? A new study…
The widely read and discussed article “AI as Normal Technology” is a reaction against claims of “superintelligence,” as its headline suggests. I’m substantially in agreement with it. AGI and superintelligence can mean whatever you want—the terms are ill-defined and next to useless. AI is better at most things than most people, but what does that…
The Trump administration’s chainsaw approach to federal spending lives on, even as Elon Musk turns on the president. On May 28, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced he’d be gutting a key office at the Department of Defense responsible for testing and evaluating the safety of weapons and AI systems. As part of a string…
Will the perfect storm of potentially life-changing, artificial intelligence-driven health care and the desire to increase profits through subscription models alienate vulnerable patients? For the third year in a row, MIT’s Envisioning the Future of Computing Prize asked students to describe, in 3,000 words or fewer, how advancements in computing could shape human society for the better…
An autonomous drone carrying water to help extinguish a wildfire in the Sierra Nevada might encounter swirling Santa Ana winds that threaten to push it off course. Rapidly adapting to these unknown disturbances inflight presents an enormous challenge for the drone’s flight control system. To help such a drone stay on target, MIT researchers developed a…
Data should drive every decision a modern business makes. But most businesses have a massive blind spot: They don’t know what’s happening in their visual data. Coactive is working to change that. The company, founded by Cody Coleman ’13, MEng ’15 and William Gaviria Rojas ’13, has created an artificial intelligence-powered platform that can make sense…
In a recent episode of High Signal, we spoke with Dr. Fei-Fei Li about what it really means to build human-centered AI, and where the field might be heading next. Fei-Fei doesn’t describe AI as a feature or even an industry. She calls it a “civilizational technology”—a force as foundational as electricity or computing itself….
Last year, China saw a boom in foundation models, the do-everything large language models that underpin the AI revolution. This year, the focus has shifted to AI agents—systems that are less about responding to users’ queries and more about autonomously accomplishing things for them. There are now a host of Chinese startups building these general-purpose…
This is the third of four parts in this series. Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 can be found here. 7. Building or Integrating an MCP Server: What It Takes Given these examples, you might wonder: How do I build an MCP server for my own application or integrate one that’s out there?…