Essential for many industries ranging from Hollywood computer-generated imagery to product design, 3D modeling tools often use text or image prompts to dictate different aspects of visual appearance, like color and form. As much as this makes sense as a first point of contact, these systems are still limited in their realism due to their neglect of something central to the human experience: touch.

When visual information enters the brain, it travels through two pathways that process different aspects of the input. For decades, scientists have hypothesized that one of these pathways, the ventral visual stream, is responsible for recognizing objects, and that it might have been optimized by evolution to do just that.

Think of your most prized belongings. In an increasingly virtual world, wouldn’t it be great to save a copy of that precious item and all the memories it holds?

Six current MIT affiliates and 27 additional MIT alumni have been elected as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 

Agentic AI systems are “designed to pursue complex goals with autonomy and predictability” (MIT Technology Review). Agentic AI models enable productivity by taking goal-directed actions, making contextual decisions, and adjusting plans based on changing conditions with minimal human oversight.

CSAIL Alliances Affiliate Member Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) hosted a January 2025 IAP course, “The Nexus of Games and AI.” Designed to “introduce students to game creation, current game-related research, and an exploration of the technology, the art, and the fun of video games,” this course allowed SIE to engage with a broad range of students, meet CSAIL faculty, and deepen their connection to MIT CSAIL.

It’s difficult to build devices that replicate the fluid, precise motion of humans, but that might change if we could pull a few (literal) strings.

This week the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) elected Tomás Lozano-Pérez, MIT School of Engineering Professor in Teaching Excellence and CSAIL principal investigator, as a member for his work in robot motion planning and molecular design.

Should you grab your umbrella before you walk out the door? Checking the weather forecast beforehand will only be helpful if that forecast is accurate.

"The net effect [of DeepSeek] should be to significantly increase the pace of AI development, since the secrets are being let out and the models are now cheaper and easier to train by more people." ~ Associate Professor Phillip Isola