Looking beyond hardware + quantum arrays + AI and jobs

TeleAbsence, a project from the MIT Media Lab, probes and imitates the way humans process feelings of belonging, love, and loss.

MIT engineers developed a new way to create these arrays, by scaffolding quantum rods onto patterned DNA.

The longtime senior administrative assistant reflects on some of her proudest moments at MIT.

Coveney brought expertise and kindness to MIT, serving as an invaluable member of CTL for 23 years.

This past spring, Professor J. Phillip Thompson and MIT lecturer Elisabeth Reynolds taught a class at MIT that sent students to work with local officials across the country to help identify available federal funding for climate change mitigation. “We have to figure out how to use it. Because if we don’t, wealthy communities will go green, and low-income communities will stay brown,” says Thompson. “Unless we do something intentionally to make sure that it is fair, it will bypass poor communities.”

Professor David Autor discusses the risks AI poses to the labor market and job quality, but also the technology’s potential to help rebuild middle-class employment. “The good case for AI is where it enables people with foundational expertise or judgment to do more expert work with less expertise,” says Autor. He adds, “My hope is that we can use AI to reinstate the value of skills held by people without as high a degree of formal education.”