The Boston Globe’s Hiawatha Bray spotlights Prof. Max Tegmark speaking at the “Pro-Human Assembly” in Washington, an event advocating for government regulations on AI, sponsored by Tegmark’s Future of Life Institute. “We are here today because we know that what’s up next is a fork in the road,” said Tegmark at the assembly. “We know that the future of AI is not inevitable. It is for us to decide.”
Members of the MIT community speak to Boston 25 News reporter Lisa Gresci about how they use AI, and their concerns with regulating the technology. Developers should consider, “how AI can help communities so [they are] not just building things, but are also deploying it [with purpose] out in the world,” says graduate student Anku Rani.
Prof. John Sterman speaks with The Boston Globe Editorial Board about the potential impacts of AI on a variety of fields. The Editorial Board writes that Sterman sees “outcomes where AI can be harnessed to solve societal problems such as climate change, but, he said, first and foremost, that will take smarter government policies and incentives. A new simulator he helped develop, En-ROADS, allows users to explore AI’s potential impacts on climate change, positive and negative, depending on which path we choose.”
MIT researchers found that users preferred to consult professionals over AI chatbots, except when they are feeling embarrassment or shame, writes Forbes’ Joe McKendrick. “When we seek advice from other people, we’re often reluctant to share embarrassing details because we have a fear of being judged,” the researchers write. “People are more likely to turn to AI models to get professional advice when they’re embarrassed, because the model doesn’t judge them.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu discusses the impact of AI models on jobs in an article by CNBC’s Trevor Laurence Jockims. “If AI continues to be developed as an automation technology, there will be more impacts. Right now, we don’t have many easy-to-use applications relevant for a large number of tasks/industries,” says Acemoglu. “Once these are developed, the labor market effects will be multiplied.”
Prof. Max Tegmark joins David Gura and Christina Ruffini, hosts of “Bloomberg This Weekend,” to discuss briefing the U.S Senate on regulating AI, in wake of recent reports of rogue agents. “I want to emphasize for anyone who gets stressed by this, that this dystopian future where we build smarter than human AIs and robots, super intelligence, and then they take over Earth, is not at all inevitable,” says Tegmark.
Prof. Justin Solomon joins GBH’s “The Curiosity Desk" to explain the Navier-Stokes problem and the significance of this longstanding challenge being solved by an AI platform. “There are concerns and there’s excitement,” says Solomon. “Obviously, working on the Navier-Stokes equations and other open problems shows that these AI tools are capable of assisting with proofs, or at least counter examples in this particular case, of really hard questions that have been open for centuries.”
Prof. Sherry Turkle speaks to Scientific American’s Brianne Kane about her forthcoming book, “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.” “Social media got us into the attention economy, but chatbots are more toxic because they’re coming after the attachment economy,” says Turkle. “They’re coming after who you think you love, who you think you can count on, what you think empathy is.”
In a Scientific American article by reporter Joseph Howlett, Prof. Naomi Sweeting discusses the potential pitfalls of consulting artificial intelligence in mathematics. “I view math as part of a vast and beautiful human project,” says Sweeting. “It's this huge endeavor that puts us in communication with thousands of years of human thinking.”
Sloan Senior Lecturer Jonathan Ruane joins Carmel Crimmins, host of Reuters’ “Econ World,” to discuss the future of quantum computing. “By 2035 I would not be surprised if you’re seeing some elements of the economy—whether that be firms within drug research for example, using, for certain applications, quantum computers as part of their overall process,” says Ruane.
Prof. Sherry Turkle’s latest book “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines,” is highlighted as one of the best new science books of September 2026 by New Scientist’s Liz Else. In her new book, Turkle explores how machines “are producing a generation more alienated, depressed and lonely than ever – and less equipped to reverse course, as machine relationships offer no practice for getting along with people,” writes Else.
Prof. Justin Reich, director of the MIT Teaching Systems Lab, speaks to Chalkbeat’s Lily Altavena about the need for policymakers to develop stronger guidelines to help teachers address the misuse of AI in their classrooms. “I think the situation teachers are in [without AI policies] feels bad, and feels like they ought to have a solution now that they don’t have,” says Reich. Existing documents on academic integrity “seem light on actual guidance and don’t include many citations, Reich said.”
MIT researchers have developed an AI-powered robotic therapy system that combines wearable force sensors and camera recordings of physical therapists’ movements to provide personalized therapy to patients, writes Newsweek’s Claudia Tanner. “Robotic assistance will allow patients to practice exercises more often while still receiving support tailored to their abilities,” says Johannes Lachner, who completed this work as a postdoctoral fellow at MIT. “Our goal is to take a step toward more accessible and personalized physical rehabilitation, giving more patients the opportunity to regain movement and independence.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, President Emeritus L. Rafael Reif describes the need to develop a universal “moral floor,” like the Ten Commandments, which provide clear guidelines for the use of AI. “Today, people are creating and developing intelligence that is much more capable, in narrow ways, than our own,” Reif explains. “We owe humanity the same discipline to civilize AI before it is too late: Write down what lines must never be crossed, make the list short enough to remember, and hold every actor building it, and using it, accountable for its actions.”
Prof. David Autor speaks to Financial Times reporter Christian Davies about the increased use of physical AI systems at U.S. manufacturing companies. “[Autor says] that while individual companies might increase headcount as they grow more productive, it is a fallacy to assume this will be replicated across the manufacturing sector as a whole, noting that previous waves of automation in the US have all driven large-scale declines in blue-collar employment,” writes Davies.