Latest News & Research

As a child, you likely saw a few Disney movies depicting inanimate objects, such as clocks, cups, and toys, as interactive companions to humans — an act of pure magic, seemingly. But scientists at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are now doing something similar: transforming stationary items into self-aware tools that perceive and respond to human motion to complete a task.

Self-driving cars are often controlled by deep learning models that sometimes fail in unexpected situations. For instance, the car might inexplicably brake and block the path of an oncoming emergency vehicle. A human driver or passenger may need to react rapidly to prevent a collision.