Tag: Human-computer interaction

New software enables blind and low-vision users to create interactive, accessible charts

A growing number of tools enable users to make online data representations, like charts, that are accessible for people who are blind or have low vision. However, most tools require an existing visual chart that can then be converted into an accessible format. This creates barriers that prevent blind and low-vision users from building their […]

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Engineering household robots to have a little common sense

From wiping up spills to serving up food, robots are being taught to carry out increasingly complicated household tasks. Many such home-bot trainees are learning through imitation; they are programmed to copy the motions that a human physically guides them through. It turns out that robots are excellent mimics. But unless engineers also program them […]

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Large language models use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some stored knowledge

Large language models, such as those that power popular artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT, are incredibly complex. Even though these models are being used as tools in many areas, such as customer support, code generation, and language translation, scientists still don’t fully grasp how they work. In an effort to better understand what is going […]

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“We offer another place for knowledge”

In the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi, Jospin Hassan didn’t have access to the education opportunities he sought. So, he decided to create his own.  Hassan knew the booming fields of data science and artificial intelligence could bring job opportunities to his community and help solve local challenges. After earning a spot in the 2020-21 […]

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A new way to let AI chatbots converse all day without crashing

When a human-AI conversation involves many rounds of continuous dialogue, the powerful large language machine-learning models that drive chatbots like ChatGPT sometimes start to collapse, causing the bots’ performance to rapidly deteriorate. A team of researchers from MIT and elsewhere has pinpointed a surprising cause of this problem and developed a simple solution that enables […]

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Entrepreneur creates career pathways with MIT OpenCourseWare

When June Odongo interviewed early-career electrical engineer Cynthia Wacheke for a software engineering position at her company, Wacheke lacked knowledge of computer science theory but showed potential in complex problem-solving. Determined to give Wacheke a shot, Odongo turned to MIT OpenCourseWare to create a six-month “bridging course” modeled after the classes she once took as […]

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Reasoning and reliability in AI

In order for natural language to be an effective form of communication, the parties involved need to be able to understand words and their context, assume that the content is largely shared in good faith and is trustworthy, reason about the information being shared, and then apply it to real-world scenarios. MIT PhD students interning with […]

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Leveraging language to understand machines

Natural language conveys ideas, actions, information, and intent through context and syntax; further, there are volumes of it contained in databases. This makes it an excellent source of data to train machine-learning systems on. Two master’s of engineering students in the 6A MEng Thesis Program at MIT, Irene Terpstra ’23 and Rujul Gandhi ’22, are […]

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Automated system teaches users when to collaborate with an AI assistant

Artificial intelligence models that pick out patterns in images can often do so better than human eyes — but not always. If a radiologist is using an AI model to help her determine whether a patient’s X-rays show signs of pneumonia, when should she trust the model’s advice and when should she ignore it? A […]

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New method uses crowdsourced feedback to help train robots

To teach an AI agent a new task, like how to open a kitchen cabinet, researchers often use reinforcement learning — a trial-and-error process where the agent is rewarded for taking actions that get it closer to the goal. In many instances, a human expert must carefully design a reward function, which is an incentive […]

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Explained: Generative AI

A quick scan of the headlines makes it seem like generative artificial intelligence is everywhere these days. In fact, some of those headlines may actually have been written by generative AI, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a chatbot that has demonstrated an uncanny ability to produce text that seems to have been written by a human. But […]

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Using language to give robots a better grasp of an open-ended world

Imagine you’re visiting a friend abroad, and you look inside their fridge to see what would make for a great breakfast. Many of the items initially appear foreign to you, with each one encased in unfamiliar packaging and containers. Despite these visual distinctions, you begin to understand what each one is used for and pick […]

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To excel at engineering design, generative AI must learn to innovate, study finds

ChatGPT and other deep generative models are proving to be uncanny mimics. These AI supermodels can churn out poems, finish symphonies, and create new videos and images by automatically learning from millions of examples of previous works. These enormously powerful and versatile tools excel at generating new content that resembles everything they’ve seen before. But […]

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A method to interpret AI might not be so interpretable after all

As autonomous systems and artificial intelligence become increasingly common in daily life, new methods are emerging to help humans check that these systems are behaving as expected. One method, called formal specifications, uses mathematical formulas that can be translated into natural-language expressions. Some researchers claim that this method can be used to spell out decisions […]

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AI copilot enhances human precision for safer aviation

Imagine you’re in an airplane with two pilots, one human and one computer. Both have their “hands” on the controllers, but they’re always looking out for different things. If they’re both paying attention to the same thing, the human gets to steer. But if the human gets distracted or misses something, the computer quickly takes […]

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Is AI in the eye of the beholder?

Someone’s prior beliefs about an artificial intelligence agent, like a chatbot, have a significant effect on their interactions with that agent and their perception of its trustworthiness, empathy, and effectiveness, according to a new study. Researchers from MIT and Arizona State University found that priming users — by telling them that a conversational AI agent […]

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Bringing design justice to the classroom and workplace

Whether you’re building a home or programming a robot, design is a human-centered activity, making it essential to teach design in a way that focuses on equity, justice, and ethics. That’s one of the messages that was shared at a workshop offered by members of MIT’s Design Justice Project at the International Design Engineering Technical Conferences […]

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Meet the 2023-24 Accenture Fellows

The MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology has selected five new research fellows for 2023-24. Now in its third year, the initiative underscores the ways in which industry and research can collaborate to spur technological innovation. Through its partnership with the School of Engineering, Accenture provides five annual fellowships awarded to graduate […]

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Multi-AI collaboration helps reasoning and factual accuracy in large language models

An age-old adage, often introduced to us during our formative years, is designed to nudge us beyond our self-centered, nascent minds: “Two heads are better than one.” This proverb encourages collaborative thinking and highlights the potency of shared intellect. Fast forward to 2023, and we find that this wisdom holds true even in the realm […]

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