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Inside electronic commerce
As a boy in northern England, David C. Parkes was upwards of 12 when he got his first computer. It was an Acorn Electron, beige and clunky, with 32KB of memory and one sound channel. He used it to...
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Leslie Valiant wins Turing Award
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) today (March 9) named Leslie G. Valiant the winner of the 2010 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his fundamental contributions to the development of computational...
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Students vs. computer
Harvard Business School (HBS) and the MIT Sloan School of Management house some of the brightest up-and-coming minds in their fields. But on Monday, students from both schools came up against one...
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Alan Turing at 100
It is hard to overstate the importance of Alan Turing, the British mathematician who died in 1954. He was a hero in science, for one. Turing invented the concepts that underlie modern computers and...
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Advancing science and technology
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is awarding grants to create three new science and technology centers this year, and it is no accident that two of them will be based in Cambridge. Harvard...
View ArticleRobots to the rescue
On the plains of Namibia, millions of tiny termites are building a mound of soil, an 8-foot-tall “lung” for their underground nest. During a year of construction, many termites will live and die, wind...
View ArticleWhat artificial intelligence will look like in 2030
Artificial intelligence (AI) has already transformed our lives — from the autonomous cars on the roads to the robotic vacuums and smart thermostats in our homes. Over the next 15 years, AI technologies...
View ArticleHarvard professor talks brain engineering at Ed Portal
The brain and how it learns may be among the most complicated puzzles in the quickly advancing field of neuroscience. But Harvard is trying to unravel its mystery. The Ariadne Project, led by David...
View ArticleAs AI rises, you’ll likely have a job, but it may be different
The fear of losing your job to a robot is by no means a new phenomenon, despite being a worrisome one. Jason Furman, professor of the practice of economic policy at Harvard Kennedy School and former...
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HUBweek panel probes AI in criminal justice
What if the algorithm is racist? As computers shift from being helpmates that tackle the drudgery of dense calculations and data handling to smart machines informing decisions, their potential for bias...
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Researchers create algorithm to separate earthquakes from seismic noise
Imagine standing in the middle of Harvard Square and the swirling cacophony that comes with it: the thrum of passing cars, the rumbling of trucks and buses, the chattering tourists and students, and a...
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Snapshot Serengeti gets a boost from AI
“Deep learning,” already poised to transform fields from earthquake prediction to cancer detection to self-driving cars, is about to be unleashed on a new discipline — ecology. A team of researchers...
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An open-source AI tool available to study movement across behaviors and species
Understanding the brain, in part, means understanding how behavior is created. To reverse-engineer how neural circuits drive behavior requires accurate and vigorous tracking of behavior, yet the...
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Harvard scientists probe aftershocks with AI
In the weeks and months following a major earthquake, the surrounding area is often wracked by powerful aftershocks that can leave an already damaged community reeling and can significantly hamper...
View ArticleMartin Rees brings ‘On the Future: Prospects for Humanity’ to Harvard
Astrophysicist and cosmologist Martin Rees visited the Center for the Environment this week to discuss his new book, “On the Future: Prospects for Humanity.” Rees, a former master of Trinity College,...
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Microsoft president discusses the good and bad of corporate activism
Whether we like it or not, the public is increasingly turning not to their elected officials, but to the heads of major corporations for leadership on important and difficult issues. Perhaps because of...
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In health care, AI offers promise — and hype
In 2016, a Google team announced it had used artificial intelligence to diagnose diabetic retinopathy — one of the fastest-growing causes of blindness — as well as trained eye doctors could. In...
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At Harvard, adding AI to M.D.
You’re a first-year medical student and Step 1 of three U.S. Medical Licensing Examinations (USMLE) looms. Study drills include everything from anatomy to physiology, aging to immunology. You pore over...
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Harvard, Princeton scientists make AI breakthrough for fusion energy
For decades, scientists have been trying to develop clean, limitless energy by re-creating the conditions at the center of the sun here on Earth. But if nuclear fusion is to be practical for...
View ArticleHarvard Medical School develops AI to see visual cortex’s preferences
Why do our eyes tend to be drawn more to some shapes, colors, and silhouettes than others? For more than half a century, researchers have known that neurons in the brain’s visual system respond...
View ArticleResearchers propose ‘machine behavior’ field could blend AI, social sciences
In 1969, artificial-intelligence pioneer and Nobel laureate Herbert Simon proposed a new science, one that approached the study of artificial objects just as one would study natural objects. “Natural...
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Harvard researchers present nanowire devices update
Machines are getting cozy with our cells. Embeddable sensors record how and when neurons fire; electrodes spark heart cells to beat or brain cells to fire; neuron-like devices could even encourage...
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How regulation can minimize online risk
This year, the number of web-connected devices around the world is estimated to hit about three for every person living: more than 20 billion gadgets, cars, smart speakers, and more. Already in use are...
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Harvard a partner in $20 million AI institute
The National Science Foundation has awarded a five-year, $20 million grant to a team of scientists, including eight from Harvard, to create a new research institute aimed at exploring the use of...
View ArticleTech Spotlight honors three for responsible technology
Ash Carter, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense and current director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, leads the Technology and Public Purpose...
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Risks and benefits of an AI revolution in medicine
Third in a series that taps the expertise of the Harvard community to examine the promise and potential pitfalls of the coming age of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The news is bad: “I’m...
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Imagine a life surrounded by AI
Fourth and last in a series that taps the expertise of the Harvard community to examine the promise and potential pitfalls of the rising age of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and how to...
View ArticleAI reveals current drugs that may help combat Alzheimer’s
New treatments for Alzheimer’s disease are desperately needed, but numerous clinical trials of investigational drugs have failed to generate promising options. Now a team at Harvard-affiliated...
View ArticleNew study says ‘hidden workers’ are being excluded
Since business has picked up with the COVID vaccine rollout, record numbers of employers have struggled to find workers. In August, half of U.S. small business owners had jobs they wanted to fill, a...
View ArticleHarvard research foregrounds AI as colonoscopy tool
Colonoscopy is an important weapon in the fight against colon cancer, which killed 51,000 Americans in 2019, making it the nation’s second-deadliest cancer. But doctors’ ability to catch polyps on the...
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Former Radcliffe scholars study whale communication
If only Captain Ahab and the white whale could have had a heart-to-heart, things might have turned out differently. It may be a bit late for the protagonists of Herman Melville’s classic novel “Moby...
View ArticleAI-based method predicts risk of atrial fibrillation
An artificial intelligence-based method for identifying patients who are at risk for atrial fibrillation has been developed by a team led by researchers at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General...
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When will a robot write a novel? Harvard computer scientist shares his thoughts
Wondering is a new series in which Harvard experts give informed answers to random questions. For the first installment, we asked Krzysztof Gajos, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science, to tell us...
View ArticleNew Harvard institute to study natural, artificial intelligence
Harvard University on Tuesday launched the Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence, a new University-wide initiative standing at the intersection of neuroscience and...
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Harvard seen as well-equipped to meet ambitious institute’s goals
The mission of the new Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence, which was announced by Harvard and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative this week, is undeniably ambitious,...
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Using AI to predict COVID surges
A team of researchers recently developed an artificial intelligence model that can predict which coronavirus variants will likely dominate and cause surges. The work was led by Jacob Lemieux, an...
View ArticleAI tool predicts melanoma survivor’s risk of recurrence
Most deaths from melanoma — the most lethal form of skin cancer — occur in patients who were initially diagnosed with early stage melanoma and then later experienced a recurrence, which typically goes...
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Will ChatGPT replace human writers? Pinker weighs in.
Steven Pinker thinks ChatGPT is truly impressive — and will be even more so once it “stops making stuff up” and becomes less error-prone. Higher education, indeed, much of the world, was set abuzz in...
View ArticleUsing AI to target Alzheimer’s
Although investigators have made strides in detecting signs of Alzheimer’s disease using high-quality brain imaging tests collected as part of research studies, a team at Massachusetts General Hospital...
View ArticleWhy China has an edge on artificial intelligence
Dictatorships and authoritarian regimes tend to trail more democratic and inclusive nations in fostering cutting-edge, innovative technologies, such as robotics and clean energy. Artificial...
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What happens when AI takes on one of ‘most human’ art forms?
A theater troupe assembles at Google’s Manhattan office to develop and rehearse a play written by an artificial intelligence named Denise. The actors consider whether a human audience will be able...
View ArticleMaking algorithm used in AI more human-like
How does the human brain navigate complex circumstances — say, driving through Harvard Square traffic at 5 p.m.? One theory gaining support with psychologists and neuroscientists is that the brain...
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Is art generated by artificial intelligence real art?
The emergence of AI-image generators, such as DALL-E 2, Discord, Midjourney, and others, has stirred a controversy over whether art generated by artificial intelligence should be considered real art —...
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Time for teachers to get moving on ChatGPT
Students across the globe have been experimenting with ChatGPT, the artificial-intelligence-driven program, over the past several months. Many educators, however, remain mired in concerns about all of...
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