Twenty years ago, most people associated artificial intelligence (AI) with the software programs that go awry in movies such as Terminator and 2001 A Space Odyssey. Today, AI is everywhere. It’s behind voice-controlled assistants like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, self-driving cars and the recommendations you get on social media platforms, streaming services and online shopping sites. It also helps scientists spot cancers, review X-ray images and speed up medical diagnoses. In addition, AI has helped researchers create new drugs and materials.
The emergence of AI has created both excitement and trepidation. Some experts worry that AI could replace jobs or increase economic inequality. Others believe that it will create many new categories of work that would be impossible for human workers to perform. And in fact, there is evidence that AI is already creating more jobs than it’s replacing.
MIT researchers are working on technologies that can help humans and machines collaborate more effectively. Their efforts include a tool that translates English text into sign language, as well as a system that can automatically correct grammatical errors in writing. The team is also developing a way to visualize Escher-like optical illusions in 3-D, which could spark new designs and enhance AI models for drug and material discovery.
Advances in computing hardware have helped fuel the growth of AI. GPUs designed for graphics rendering and specialized processors called tensor and neural processing units have sped up the training of complex AI models. Cloud systems from companies such as Cloudian, co-founded by an MIT alumnus, are helping businesses feed data-hungry AI models and agents at scale.
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