Driving Behavior by Design: MIT CSAIL Professor Sam Madden on the Science of Safer Roads with AI

In this episode

Can your phone make you a safer driver? Or is it part of the problem? 📱🚗


MIT CSAIL Professor Sam Madden shares the origin story of Cambridge Mobile Telematics, a CSAIL spinout using smartphones and AI to prevent car crashes and save lives. In this episode, Professor Madden joins host Kara Miller to explore how accelerometers, algorithms, and well-timed incentives are transforming how we understand and improve driver behavior.


Professor Madden reflects on surprising data trends, like why crash rates haven’t fallen despite better car tech, and how the ubiquitous smartphone became a key tool for reducing risk on the road. He also dives into how generative AI is reshaping software development, what it means for education and programming skills, and why trust and privacy remain top concerns when deploying AI across sensitive industries.


Covering distracted driving, autonomous vehicles, behavioral nudges, and business infrastructure, Professor Madden reveals what’s working and where the road ahead leads.

 

About the speakers

Professor, MIT EECS

Professor Sam Madden is the Co-Faculty Director of SystemsThatLearn@CSAIL and former Faculty Director of the BigData@CSAIL initiative. Madden’s research is in the area of database systems, focusing on query processing over streams, sensors, and other networked information sources. He joined the faculty in January 2004, after receiving his PhD. in 2003 from the University of California, Berkeley.