MIT researchers have developed a generative artificial intelligence-driven approach for planning long-term visual tasks, like robot navigation, that is about twice as effective as some existing techniques. Their method uses a specialized vision-language model to...

Just as Darwin’s finches evolved in response to natural selection in order to endure, the cells that make up a cancerous tumor similarly counter selective pressures in order to survive, evolve, and spread. Tumors are, in fact, complex sets of cells with their own...

Joseph Paradiso thinks that the most engaging research questions usually span disciplines.  Paradiso was trained as a physicist and completed his PhD in experimental high-energy physics at MIT in 1981. His father was a photographer and filmmaker working at MIT, MIT...

In high-stakes settings like medical diagnostics, users often want to know what led a computer vision model to make a certain prediction, so they can determine whether to trust its output. Concept bottleneck modeling is one method that enables artificial intelligence...

Many engineering challenges come down to the same headache — too many knobs to turn and too few chances to test them. Whether tuning a power grid or designing a safer vehicle, each evaluation can be costly, and there may be hundreds of variables that could matter....

During a summer internship at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Ivy Mahncke, an undergraduate student of robotics engineering at Olin College of Engineering, took a hands-on approach to testing algorithms for underwater navigation. She first discovered her love for working with...

Reasoning large language models (LLMs) are designed to solve complex problems by breaking them down into a series of smaller steps. These powerful models are particularly good at challenging tasks like advanced programming and multistep planning. But developing...

Have you ever had an idea for something that looked cool, but wouldn’t work well in practice? When it comes to designing things like decor and personal accessories, generative artificial intelligence (genAI) models can relate. They can produce creative and elaborate...

Studying gene expression in a cancer patient’s cells can help clinical biologists understand the cancer’s origin and predict the success of different treatments. But cells are complex and contain many layers, so how the biologist conducts measurements affects which...

Originally from the small Balkan country of Montenegro, Strahinja (Strajo) Janjusevic says his life has unfolded in unexpected ways, for which he is deeply grateful. After graduating from high school, he was selected to represent his country in the United States,...