Prof. David Autor speaks with Wired reporter Will Knight about the anticipated impact of AI on employment. “If demand for software were like demand for colonoscopies, no improvement in speed or reduction in costs would create a mad rush for the proctologist's office,” says Autor. “But if demand for software is like demand for taxi services, then we may see an Uber effect on coding: more people writing more code at lower prices, and lower wages.”
Prof. Simon Johnson speaks with Wired reporter Paresh Dave about the financial and social cost of AI implantation in the workforce, making the case that governments should lower payroll taxes for entry-level roles to encourage hiring and help humans build careers. “The right lever to pull is one that reduces costs to employers,” says Johnson.
A study by researchers at MIT explores “worker attitudes surrounding automation,” reports Sage Lazzaro for Fortune. “A lot of factories and other industrial environments have had data around for a long time and haven’t necessarily known what to do with it,” explains Research Scientist Ben Armstrong. “Now there are new algorithms and new software that’s allowing these companies to be a lot more intelligent with using that data to make work better.”
Guardian reporter Ian Sample highlights how graduate student Alex Kachkine has developed a new approach to restoring age-damaged artwork in hours. “The technique draws on artificial intelligence and other computer tools to create a digital reconstruction of the damaged painting,” explains Sample. “This is then printed on to a transparent polymer sheet that is carefully laid over the work.”
Graduate student Alex Kachkine speaks with Nature reporter Amanda Heidt about his work developing a new restoration method for restoring damaged artwork. The method uses “digital tools to create a ‘mask’ of pigments that can be printed and varnished onto damaged paintings,” explains Heidt. The method “reduces both the cost and time associated with art restoration and could one day give new life to many of the paintings held in institutional collections — perhaps as many as 70% — that remain hidden from public view owing to damage.”
Nature spotlights graduate student Alex Kachkine – an engineer, art collector and art conservator – on his quest to develop a new AI-powered, art restoration method, reports Geoff Marsh for Nature. “My hope is that conservators around the planet will be able to use these techniques to restore paintings that have never been seen by the general public,” says Kachkine. “Many institutions have paintings that arrived at them a century ago, have never been shown because they are so damaged and there are no resources to restore them. And hopefully this technique means we will be able to see more of those publicly.”
Sloan lecturer Mikey Shulman, Colin Angle '89, SM '90, Tye Brady SM '99, Laira Major SM '05, Dharmesh Shah SM '06 have been named to the 2025 Boston Globe Tech Power Players list for their work in the applied AI sector, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe.
Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, and research affiliate Ramin Hasani have been named to The Boston Globe’s 2025 list of Tech Power Players working in the foundational AI sector, reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe. Rus and Hasani are co-founders of Liquid AI, a startup that has developed “an AI technique with fewer software ‘neurons’ than large language models of OpenAI and others,” explains Pressman. This means “Liquid AI requires less computing power (and electricity.)”
MIT researchers have developed Boltz-2, an AI algorithm “that unites protein folding and prediction of small-molecule binding affinity in one package,” reports Laura Howes for Chemical & Engineering News. “The researchers say their new AI model approaches the level of accuracy achieved by traditional computational chemistry—such as methods involving free-energy perturbation calculations—but much more quickly and cheaply,” explains Howes.
A study by researchers at MIT examines how the use of large language models impacts the human brain, reports Elizabeth Hlavinka for Salon. Research scientist Nataliya Kos'myna says the results “suggest large language models could affect our memory, attention and creativity.”
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed Boltz-2, an open-source generative AI model that can help researchers find new medicines faster, reports Alex Knapp for Forbes. The tool “can not only predict the structure of proteins, it can also predict its binding affinity–that is, how well a potential drug is able to interact with that protein,” explains Knapp. “This is crucial in the early stages of developing a new medicine.”
Postdoc Isabella Loaiza speaks with ABC News reporter Max Zahn about her study examining how jobs and tasks across the U.S. economy shifted between 2016-2024. Loaiza and her colleagues found that “rather than dispense with qualities like critical thinking and empathy, workplace technology heightened the need for workers who exhibit those attributes,” Zahn explains. “It is true we’re seeing AI having an impact on white-collar work instead of more blue-collar work,” says Loaiza. “We found that jobs that are very human-intensive are probably more robust.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. David Mindell spotlights how “a new wave of industrial companies, many in New England, are leveraging new technologies to create jobs, empower workers, and address climate change.” Mindell notes that “young Americans — new industrialists — are devoting themselves to making things for the common good.” He adds: "The country needs this generation of builders who are excited about working with their hands, about the satisfactions of building the world, and who see that work as building our communities.”
Forbes reporter Michael Nietzel spotlights MIT’s Initiative for New Manufacturing (INM), “an institution-wide effort intended to promote and advance the future of U.S. manufacturing.” Nietzel notes that the INM is part of an effort to “rethink how MIT could help shape the future of manufacturing through workforce training, advanced technologies, and industry collaborations. It will focus on enhancing the future manufacturing capacity and sophistication of several major industries.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Dominique Mosbergen spotlights how Prof. James Collins and his lab have built their “own algorithms to trawl chemical databases, such as those of existing pharmaceutical drugs, for potential antibacterial compounds.” Collins’ His lab is “also experimenting with using generative AI to design completely new molecules that could kill bacteria,” writes Mosbergen.