Last summer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) President Sally Kornbluth and Provost Cynthia Barnhart called on the academic community to provide effective strategies, policy proposals, and initiatives for the expansive realm of generative artificial intelligence (AI). They were met with an overwhelming response, receiving 75 submissions. After reviewing them, the committee selected 27 proposals eligible for seed funding.
Following this successful initial round, Kornbluth and Barnhart issued another call for proposals last fall, leading to an additional 53 submissions. A faculty committee including members from the first round carefully examined these proposals, selecting 16 for the receipt of exploratory funding. These were compiled by interdisciplinary groups of professors and researchers affiliated with all five Institute schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.
Each of the chosen research teams will be provided with $50,000 to $70,000 to elaborate upon their concepts in 10-page impact papers. All of these will be distributed widely through a publishing medium managed and overseen by the MIT Press as part of the MIT Open Publishing Services program.
Each round of papers was generously funded by Thomas Tull, a member of the MIT School of Engineering Dean’s Advisory Council, and a former innovation scholar at the Engineering School.
The selected papers cover a broad range of topics and disciplines. They offer a comprehensive array of insights and perspectives on the potential impacts and applications of generative AI. These include papers ranging from “A Road-map for End-to-end Privacy and Verifiability in Generative AI” to “Supporting the Aging Population with Generative AI”.
Other themes in these proposals discuss the implications of generative AI on the creative economy, live music performances, civic engagement, textile engineering, biomedical innovation, drug discovery, and language science. These contributions to the realm of generative AI research showcase the potential significance of this technology across a multitude of industries and fields.
