MIT
Giving Soft Robots Senses
One of the hottest topics in robotics is the field of soft robots, which utilizes squishy and flexible materials rather than traditional rigid materials. But soft robots have been limited due to their lack of good sensing. A good robotic gripper needs to feel what it is touching (tactile sensing), and it needs to sense …
Solar Energy Farms Could Offer Second Life For Electric Vehicle Batteries
As electric vehicles rapidly grow in popularity worldwide, there will soon be a wave of used batteries whose performance is no longer sufficient for vehicles that need reliable acceleration and range. But a new study shows that these batteries could still have a useful and profitable second life as backup storage for grid-scale solar photovoltaic …
How Many Jobs Do Robots Really Replace?
In many parts of the U.S., robots have been replacing workers over the last few decades. But to what extent, really? Some technologists have forecast that automation will lead to a future without work, while other observers have been more skeptical about such scenarios. Now a study co-authored by an MIT professor puts firm numbers …
Reducing The Carbon Footprint Of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence has become a focus of certain ethical concerns, but it also has some major sustainability issues. Last June, researchers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst released a startling report estimating that the amount of power required for training and searching a certain neural network architecture involves the emissions of roughly 626,000 pounds of carbon …
Machine Learning Technique Sharpens Prediction Of Material’s Mechanical Properties
Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Brown University have developed new approaches that significantly improve the accuracy of an important material testing technique by harnessing the power of machine learning. Nano-indentation – the process of poking a sample of a material with a sharp needle-like tip to …
Showing Robots How To Do Your Chores
Making progress on that vision, MIT researchers have designed a system that lets these types of robots learn complicated tasks that would otherwise stymie them with too many confusing rules. One such task is setting a dinner table under certain conditions. At its core, the researchers’ “Planning with Uncertain Specifications” (PUnS) system gives robots the …
Machine Learning Picks Out Hidden Vibrations From Earthquake Data
Over the last century, scientists have developed methods to map the structures within the Earth’s crust, in order to identify resources such as oil reserves, geothermal sources, and, more recently, reservoirs where excess carbon dioxide could potentially be sequestered. They do so by tracking seismic waves that are produced naturally by earthquakes or artificially via …
Predicting How Well Neural Networks Will Scale
For all the progress researchers have made with machine learning in helping us doing things like crunch numbers, drive cars and detect cancer, we rarely think about how energy-intensive it is to maintain the massive data centers that make such work possible. Indeed, a 2017 study predicted that, by 2025, internet-connected devices would be using 20 …
A Human-Machine Collaboration To Defend Against Cyberattacks
Being a cybersecurity analyst at a large company today is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack — if that haystack were hurtling toward you at fiber optic speed. Every day, employees and customers generate loads of data that establish a normal set of behaviors. An attacker will also generate data while …
A Road Map For Artificial Intelligence Policy
The rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies around the globe has led to increasing calls for robust AI policy: laws that let innovation flourish while protecting people from privacy violations, exploitive surveillance, biased algorithms, and more. But the drafting and passing of such laws has been anything but easy. “This is a very complex problem,” …