It's surprisingly easy to stumble into a relationship with an AI chatbot Looking for help with her art project, she strikes up a conversation with her assistant. One thing leads to another, and suddenly she has a boyfriend she's introducing to her friends and family. Her new companion is an AI chatbot. The first large-scale computational analysis of the Reddit community r/MyBoyfriendIsAI, an adults-only group with more than 27,000 members, has found that this type of scenario is now surprisingly common. In fact, many of the people in the subreddit, which is dedicated to discussing AI relationships, formed those relationships unintentionally while using AI for other purposes. Researchers from MIT found that members of this community are more likely to be in a relationship with general-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT than companionship-specific chatbots such as Replika.

New studies from OpenAI and MIT Media Lab found that, generally, the more time users spend talking to ChatGPT, the lonelier they feel. The connection was made as part of two, yet-to-be-peer-reviewed studies, one done at OpenAI analyzing "over 40 million ChatGPT interactions" and targeted user surveys, and another at MIT Media Lab following participants' ChatGPT use for four weeks. MIT's study identified several ways talking to ChatGPT -- whether through text or voice -- can affect a person's emotional experience, beyond the general finding that higher use led to "heightened loneliness and reduced socialization." For example, participants who already trusted the chatbot and tended to get emotionally attached in human relationships felt lonelier and more emotionally dependent on ChatGPT during the study. Those effects were less severe with ChatGPT's voice mode, though, particularly if ChatGPT spoke in a neutral tone.

How do we leverage AI and intelligent tools to make better decisions? How can we utilize intelligent technology to upskill our workforce and increase AI fluency? In our latest AI Ignition episode, Cynthia Breazeal, associate director of the MIT Media Lab and dean for digital learning at MIT Open Learning, shares the implications of social robotics in business and applying AI at scale. We're understanding a lot about what it takes to build technologies that can really deeply and meaningfully engage people of all ages to help them achieve deeply important goals in their lives. Cynthia Breazeal is the professor of media arts and sciences at MIT Media Lab where she founded and directs the Personal Robots group.

An artificial intelligence framework built by MIT researchers can give an "early-alert" signal for future high-impact technologies, by learning from patterns gleaned from previous scientific publications. In a retrospective test of its capabilities, DELPHI, short for Dynamic Early-warning by Learning to Predict High Impact, was able to identify all pioneering papers on an experts' list of key seminal biotechnologies, sometimes as early as the first year after their publication. James W. Weis, a research affiliate of the MIT Media Lab, and Joseph Jacobson, a professor of media arts and sciences and head of the Media Lab's Molecular Machines research group, also used DELPHI to highlight 50 recent scientific papers that they predict will be high impact by 2023. Topics covered by the papers include DNA nanorobots used for cancer treatment, high-energy density lithium-oxygen batteries, and chemical synthesis using deep neural networks, among others. The researchers see DELPHI as a tool that can help humans better leverage funding for scientific research, identifying "diamond in the rough" technologies that might otherwise languish and offering a way for governments, philanthropies, and venture capital firms to more efficiently and productively support science.

StoryLine, a collaboration between McKinsey & Company's Consumer Tech and Media team and the Lab for Social Machines (LSM), explores the intersection of visual storytelling and machine learning through work aimed at helping storytellers understand and improve the impact of their stories on their audiences. StoryLine was inspired by LSM's groundbreaking Electome project, in which researchers used advanced machine learning to build network maps of engaged election audiences and then track the diffusion of relevant conversation and content through these networks. For Electome, the result was a powerful new way of understanding how audiences form around specific political, social and cultural ideas. For StoryLine, we wondered whether this approach could translate meaningfully into measuring impact in the storytelling domain, which outside of marketing optimization has been underserved in any practical way by recent advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Understanding audience impact has arguably never been more important to those involved in the creation, production, distribution and marketing of visual stories--from the largest studios, networks and platforms to the independent creators who publish and promote on their own.

As she was looking for a camp last summer, Yabesra Ewnetu, who'd just finished eighth grade, found a reference to MIT's FutureMakers Create-a-thon. Ewnetu had heard that it's hard to detect bias in artificial intelligence because AI algorithms are so complex, but this didn't make sense to her. "I was like, well, we're the ones coding it, shouldn't we be able to see what it's doing and explain why?" She signed up for the six-week virtual FutureMakers program so she could delve into AI herself. FutureMakers is part of the MIT-wide Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) initiative launched earlier this year. RAISE is headquartered in the MIT Media Lab and run in collaboration with MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and MIT Open Learning.

As she was looking for a camp last summer, Yabesra Ewnetu, who'd just finished eighth grade, found a reference to MIT's FutureMakers Create-a-thon. Ewnetu had heard that it's hard to detect bias in artificial intelligence (AI) because AI algorithms are so complex, but this didn't make sense to her. "I was like, well, we're the ones coding it, shouldn't we be able to see what it's doing and explain why?" She signed up for the six-week virtual FutureMakers program so she could delve into AI herself. FutureMakers is part of the MIT-wide Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) initiative launched earlier this year. RAISE is headquartered in the MIT Media Lab and run in collaboration with MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and MIT Open Learning.

Last year, Charlene Xia '17, SM '20 found herself at a crossroads. She was finishing up her master's degree in media arts and sciences from the MIT Media Lab and had just submitted applications to doctoral degree programs. All Xia could do was sit and wait. In the meantime, she narrowed down her career options, regardless of whether she was accepted to any program. "I had two thoughts: I'm either going to get a PhD to work on a project that protects our planet, or I'm going to start a restaurant," recalls Xia.

The National Educational Policy (NEP) 2020 was introduced this year. One of the highlights of NEP has been the emphasis on introducing artificial intelligence, machine learning, and related technologies into the curriculum. When we think of exposing children to technology-based learning, there is often a certain amount of scepticism involved. Parents and teachers are often torn between the question -- how soon is too soon. However, it doesn't need to be as intimidating as it is made out to be.

A smartphone that can warn you not to send a text while you're upset? Early in my career--back in the stone age before computers and smartphones--I worked in environments where memos were a primary means of communication. Sure, my colleagues and I could talk face-to-face, but the culture of the time was to memorialize much of our interaction in writing. Believe it or not, there were some advantages in what now seems such an archaic practice. Unlike texts and emails--where one tap of the "send" button can fill you with instant regret--the old-fashioned memo provided a cushion of safety, a chance to reconsider.