Verge reporter Nick Statt notes that, “Much of the foundational work showing the flaws of modern facial recognition tech with regard to racial bias is thanks to Joy Buolamwini, a researcher at the MIT Media Lab, and Timnit Gebru, a member at Microsoft Research.”
Quartz reporter Nicolas Rivero notes that IBM’s decision to end its facial recognition program was inspired by “one influential piece of research: the Gender Shades project, from MIT Media Lab’s Joy Buolamwini and Microsoft Research’s Timnit Gebru.” Buolamwini and Gebru found that “commercial facial recognition software was significantly less accurate for darker-skinned women than for lighter-skinned men. “
Prof. Danielle Wood discusses her research aimed at providing equal access to the benefits of space exploration. “Our team has been doing research that addresses racial inequity,” says Wood. “You don’t have to leave aerospace to be confident you’re working against injustice, but you do have to change the way you’re doing the aerospace work.”
Popular Mechanics reporter Caroline Delbert writes that a study by MIT researchers finds that solar geoengineering efforts aimed at cooling the planet would change extratropical storm tracks. “The scientists discovered an amount of aerosol coverage required to offset that much more carbon dioxide would alter the storm tracks in both hemispheres and around the world,” says Delbert.
MIT researchers have developed a chip that brings together thousands of artificial brain synapses and could help enable small, portable AL devices, reports Darrell Etherington for TechCrunch. “The results could help create devices that can handle complex AI computing locally, while remaining small and power-efficient, and without having to connect to a data center,” writes Etherington.
Reuters reporter Howard Schneifer highlights Prof. Jeffrey Harris’ new working paper, which finds that the main methods for tracking the spread of Covid-19 have all failed in certain areas. “We will have more than a few problems trying to determine whether various state governments’ efforts to rekindle economic and social activity have been working or failing,” Harris wrote.
A new working paper co-authored by MIT researchers finds that an online voting platform “could, in certain cases, be manipulated to alter votes — without being detected by the voter, election officials or the company that owns it,” reports David Singer, Nicole Perlroth and Matthew Rosenberg for The New York Times.
New York Times reporter Neil Irwin spotlights a new working paper co-authored by Prof. Iván Werning examining the macroeconomic implications of the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular whether negative supply shocks can affect demand. “Demand is interrelated with supply,” says Werning. “It’s not a separate concept.”
Alumna and author Christine Taylor-Butler '81 speaks with CBS Boston about the importance of children’s books in confronting racism. “If we can start flooding these kids with 20 books that are positive images of people who are African American and LatinX and Native Americans, [they] start to go ‘Wow, those kids are just like me,’” says Taylor-Butler.
During a Boston Globe virtual roundtable, Paul Ha, director of the MIT List Visual Arts Center, spoke about how museums are being reimagined as they plan to reopen during the Covid-19 pandemic. Of MIT’s Student Art Lending Program, Ha notes that they try to ensure that, “for every student who walks in wanting a real piece of art, that they themselves are represented in the collection.”
In an article for TechCrunch, Andy Moss, Connor Spelliscy and John Borthwick highlight several tools developed by MIT researchers to help tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.
Researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have created a system that allows two patients to share one ventilator. Postdoc Shriya Srinivasan explains the system has "individual channels for each patient, but has controls on them such that you can deliver the appropriate volumes and pressures that each patient needs.”
TechCrunch reporter Kyle Gibson spotlights Humatics, an MIT startup that develops “sensors that enable fast-moving and powerful robots to work alongside humans without accidents.” Gibson explains that Humatics hopes to apply this technology to support “social distancing efforts on commutes, in a pilot application to allow more subway trains to run on a single track.”
Jim Morelli of Boston 25 News reports that a model developed by MIT researchers showed a slight uptick in one measure of the likelihood of the coronavirus spreading.
Researchers from MIT, the University of Oklahoma and elsewhere, along with citizen scientists, have discovered the closest young brown dwarf with a disc, reports Matt Berg for The Boston Globe. The discovery could help scientists learn more about how planets are formed, Berg explains.