Portrait of Regina Barzialy

NOVA ‘A.I. REVOLUTION’ Dives Into the Past, Present, and Future of One of the Most Consequential Technological Advancements of Our Time

BOSTON, MA; Feb.12, 2024 — The award-winning PBS science series, NOVA, a production of GBH, will premiere the one-hour film “A.I. REVOLUTION” Wednesday, March 27 at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on PBS. Can we harness the power of artificial intelligence to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems without creating an uncontrollable force that ultimately destroys us? New A.I. tools like ChatGPT can now answer complex questions, write essays, and generate realistic-looking images in a matter of seconds. In “A.I. REVOLUTION,” which will also be available for streaming at pbs.org/nova, NOVA on YouTube, and the PBS App, correspondent Miles O’Brien meets some of the scientists who are at the forefront of A.I. advancement and explores the promise, perils, and possible future of this unprecedented technology taking the world by storm.

Beyond drug discovery and prosthetics, the film explores several other ways that A.I. is transforming science. Computer scientist Regina Barzilay at Massachusetts General Hospital has trained a neural network to detect breast cancer from mammograms years before they are detectable by human eyes with over 85% accuracy. A.I. is also being used to help detect lung cancer. Lives are even being saved from natural disasters, as A.I. is now being deployed in California to detect wildfires early before they rage out of control. Learn more
Screenshot of Zoom interview between Eric Topol (left) and Jim Collins (right)

Jim Collins: Discovery of the First New Structural Class of Antibiotics in Decades, Using A.I.

Jim Collins is one of the leading biomedical engineers in the world. He’s been elected to all 3 National Academies (Engineering, Science, and Medicine) and is one of the founders of the field of synthetic biology. In this conversation, we reviewed the seminal discoveries that he and his colleagues are making at the Antibiotics-AI Project at MIT. Learn more
Screenshot of a video with a title that reads "AI and Responsible Clinical Implementation"

AI Developers Should Understand the Risks of Deploying Their Clinical Tools, MIT Expert Says

AI applications for health care should be designed to function well in different settings and across different populations, says Marzyeh Ghassemi, PhD (Video), whose work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) focuses on creating “healthy” machine learning (ML) models that are “robust, private, and fair.” The way AI-generated clinical advice is presented to physicians is also important for reducing harms, according to Ghassemi, who is an assistant professor at MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science. And, she says, developers should be aware that they have a responsibility to clinicians and patients who could one day be affected by their tools. Learn more
Plane taking off from a handheld tablet surrounded by white geometric lines and floating blue pixels.

Stratospheric safety standards: How aviation could steer regulation of AI in health

What is the likelihood of dying in a plane crash? According to a 2022 report released by the International Air Transport Association, the industry fatality risk is 0.11. In other words, on average, a person would need to take a flight every day for 25,214 years to have a 100 percent chance of experiencing a fatal accident. Long touted as one of the safest modes of transportation, the highly regulated aviation industry has MIT scientists thinking that it may hold the key to regulating artificial intelligence in health care.

Marzyeh Ghassemi, an assistant professor at the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Institute of Medical Engineering Sciences, and Julie Shah, an H.N. Slater Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, share an interest in the challenges of transparency in AI models. After chatting in early 2023, they realized that aviation could serve as a model to ensure that marginalized patients are not harmed by biased AI models. Learn more
Screenshot of NYT Hard Fork episode page

Why Casey Left Substack, Elon Musk and Drugs, and an A.I. Antibiotic Discovery

Casey is taking his newsletter Platformer off Substack, as criticism over the company’s handling of pro-Nazi content grows. Then, The Wall Street Journal spoke with witnesses who said that Elon Musk had used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, worrying some directors and board members of his companies. And finally, how researchers found a new class of antibiotics with the help of an artificial intelligence algorithm used to win the board game Go.

Today’s guests:

Kirsten Grind, enterprise reporter for The Wall Street Journal

Felix Wong, postdoctoral fellow at M.I.T. and co-founder of Integrated Biosciences

Additional Reading:

Why Platformer is leaving Substack.

Elon Musk has reportedly used illegal drugs, worrying leaders at Tesla and SpaceX.

Researchers have discovered a new class of antibiotics using A.I. Learn more
Headshots of various award recipients

Announcing the 2024 Society Award Recipients!

January 10, 2024, Mt. Laurel, NJ — The Society For Biomaterials (SFB), a multidisciplinary society of academic, healthcare, governmental and business professionals who are dedicated to promoting advancements in all aspects of biomaterials science, education, and professional standards to enhance human health and quality of life, recently announced its slate of 2024 award recipients. Learn more
AI-generated vintage illustration showing a team of male and female scientists surrounding a complex metal machine covered in glass

How important is explainability? Applying clinical trial principles to AI safety testing

The use of AI in consumer-facing businesses is on the rise — as is the concern for how best to govern the technology over the long-term. Pressure to better govern AI is only growing with the Biden administration’s recent executive order that mandated new measurement protocols for the development and use of advanced AI systems. Learn more
Illustration of a light bulb glowing in the foreground with various geometric shapes/silhouettes in the background.

A year of discovery

Why it matters: the world is in urgent need of new ideas and inspiration to address chronic and infectious diseases, climate change, energy demands and other complex and consequential problems.

Here are some of the biggest discoveries and advances of 2023...

AI-assisted discovery: The push to use AI for science notched some advances in 2023 — including solving a famous math problem, finding a new class of antibiotics and predicting the structure of nearly 400,000 possible new materials, which are needed for next-generation batteries, solar cells and computing. Learn more
Dina Katabi standing on stage holding a microphone and a remote.

MIT Jameel Clinic conference urges use of AI in healthcare

The Jameel Clinic, the epicenter of artificial intelligence in healthcare at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently hosted the first conference in Saudi Arabia to drive the use of AI in healthcare. The event marked the second edition of AI Cures MENASA, a one-day conference that aims to explore the integration of AI into healthcare with a focus on the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia region. Learn more
Image of a reticle aiming at a group of purple microscopic cells against a background of glowing dots.

Using AI, MIT researchers identify a new class of antibiotic candidates

Using a type of artificial intelligence known as deep learning, MIT researchers have discovered a class of compounds that can kill a drug-resistant bacterium that causes more than 10,000 deaths in the United States every year. Learn more
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