McCormick Prof. Sam Kriegman and his lab assistant David Matthews recently developed a one-of-a-kind artificial intelligence program that builds a robot in seconds.

This program is the first AI to be able to intelligently design other robots. The pair spoke with The Daily about their groundbreaking work, describing what is at the root of this technology and their passion.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

The Daily: What inspiration drives your work in evolutionary robotics?

Kriegman: Evolutionary robotics is a fascinating field. We aim to understand how complex behaviors can emerge from simple rules over periods of time. By simulating evolution and natural selection, we create robots that optimize design and function. Xenobots, our recent creation, are a new form of life, shaped and designed through evolutionary algorithms to achieve specific tasks.

The Daily: How did you come to realize the potential of AI and evolutionary algorithms in creating these biological robots?

Kriegman: The journey began with an exploration of robotics, which mimics the movement and functions of animals. Robots are essentially artificial animals that move through the world in various ways. This connection led us to delve into the intersection of AI, biology and mechanical engineering. AI allows us to bridge computer science with the physical world in new and never-before ways.

Matthews: You can understand systems by building them. Robotics connects computer science with the physical medium because it intersects with a lot of different fields. You can do theoretical research where youre using mathematics, and then you can also do more applied sciences where youre connecting to biology or mechanical engineering, but robotics is more accessible.

The Daily: What makes your work stand out and what makes it accessible to a wider audience?

Matthews: What we have here could be a middle school arts and crafts project because its accessible in that sense. Our platform can be run on standard computers, and the tools to create these robots are relatively inexpensive. You can 3D print the robot designs or build them with readily available materials. We aim to make it an educational tool that spans from simple crafts to advanced scientific research.

The Daily: Can you share a bit about the aha moment when you realized you had achieved something extraordinary?

Kriegman: Nobody believed this was possible, including myself, at least not in the near future. The realization of our achievement happened gradually, much like an ape discovering the use of tools a significant leap in technology with transformative potential for engineering. Evolution can be controversial because many cant grasp long time scales and havent witnessed it. With Davids work, we can now see it happening. Questions like What if we put it in water? What would it grow into? can be answered with Davids computer program, providing a new tool for exploration.

Matthews: Its hard when youre in the weeds sometimes to even tell how important or how big of a step forward it is. I see the vision of how this could play out and, wow, we could really revolutionize how everyone could design geometries of moving systems, not just robots but everything and anything that moves. This is the first step on that journey. If we dont take the next steps, what were doing wont go anywhere.

The Daily: How do you view the intersection of AI and robotics in the context of ethical and societal concerns?

Kriegman: A hammer can be used for good and bad. Ethical discussions and vigilance are essential due to its potential biases and unintended consequences. AI can have biases and unwanted consequences, so we need to tread carefully and use it vigilantly. If we just blindly accept that the AI is good, were going to end up in situations where AI makes decisions and theres no human to double-check them. In our research, we control it on a computer, reducing takeover concerns. Thanks to Davids work, carbon footprint is less of an issue. Optimism is crucial in our approach.

The Daily: What lessons can we learn from your work and its potential applications in the real world?

Kriegman: We must think beyond the initial excitement and consider the long-term consequences of integrating AI into various aspects of our lives. In the future, we could use large language models or image generation systems to design robots and incorporate simulation knowledge, making them more capable of interacting with the world.

Email: [emailprotected]

Twitter: @HabashySam

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A Q&A with scientists Sam Kriegman and David Matthews - Daily Northwestern

The world in recent years has largely been moving on from debates about the need to curb carbon emissions and focusing more on action the development, implementation, and deployment of the technological, economic, and policy measures to spur the scale of reductions needed by mid-century. That was the message Robert Stoner, the interim director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), gave in his opening remarks at the 2023 MITEI Annual Research Conference.

Attendees at the two-day conference included faculty members, researchers, industry and financial leaders, government officials, and students, as well as more than 50 online participants from around the world.

We are at an extraordinary inflection point. We have this narrow window in time to mitigate the worst effects of climate change by transforming our entire energy system and economy, said Jonah Wagner, the chief strategist of the U.S. Department of Energys (DOE) Loan Programs Office, in one of the conferences keynote speeches.

Yet the solutions exist, he said. Most of the technologies that we need to deploy to stay close to the international target of 1.5 degrees Celsius warming are proven and ready to go, he said. We have over 80 percent of the technologies we will need through 2030, and at least half of the technologies we will need through 2050.

For example, Wagner pointed to the newly commissioned advanced nuclear power plant near Augusta, Georgia the first new nuclear reactor built in the United States in a generation, partly funded through DOE loans. It will be the largest source of clean power in America, he said. Though implementing all the needed technologies in the United States through mid-century will cost an estimated $10 trillion, or about $300 billion a year, most of that money will come from the private sector, he said.

As the United States faces what he describes as a tsunami of distributed energy production, one key example of the strategy thats needed going forward, he said, is encouraging the development of virtual power plants (VPPs). The U.S. power grid is growing, he said, and will add 200 gigawatts of peak demand by 2030. But rather than building new, large power plants to satisfy that need, much of the increase can be accommodated by VPPs, he said which are aggregations of distributed energy resources like rooftop solar with batteries, like electric vehicles (EVs) and chargers, like smart appliances, commercial and industrial loads on the grid that can be used together to help balance supply and demand just like a traditional power plant. For example, by shifting the time of demand for some applications where the timing is not critical, such as recharging EVs late at night instead of right after getting home from work when demand may be peaking, the need for extra peak power can be alleviated.

Such programs offer a broad range of benefits, including affordability, reliability and resilience, decarbonization, and emissions reductions. But implementing such systems on a wide scale requires some up-front help, he explained. Payment for consumers to enroll in programs that allow such time adjustments is the majority of the cost of establishing VPPs, he says, and that means most of the money spent on VPPs goes back into the pockets of American consumers. But to make that happen, there is a need for standardization of VPP operations so that we are not recreating the wheel every single time we deploy a pilot or an effort with a utility.

The conferences other keynote speaker, Anne White, the vice provost and associate vice president for research administration at MIT, cited devastating recent floods, wildfires, and many other extreme weather-related crises around the world that have been exacerbated by climate change. We saw in myriad ways that energy concerns and climate concerns are one and the same, she said. So, we must urgently develop and scale low-carbon and zero-carbon solutions to prevent future warming. And we must do this with a practical, systems-based approach that considers efficiency, affordability, equity, and sustainability for how the world will meet its energy needs.

White added that at MIT, we are mobilizing everything. People at MIT feel a strong sense of responsibility for dealing with these global issues, she said, and I think its because we believe we have tools that can really make a difference.

Among the specific promising technologies that have sprung from MITs labs, she pointed out, is the rapid development of fusion technology that led to MIT spinoff company Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which aims to build a demonstration unit of a practical fusion power reactor by the decades end. Thats an outcome of decades of research, she emphasized the kinds of early-stage risky work that only academic labs, with help from government grants, can carry out.

For example, she pointed to the more than 200 projects that MITEI has provided seed funds of $150,000 each for two years, totaling over $28 million to date. Such early support is a key part of producing the kind of transformative innovation we know we all need. In addition, MITs The Engine has also helped launch not only Commonwealth Fusion Systems, but also Form Energy, a company building a plant in West Virginia to manufacture advanced iron-air batteries for renewable energy storage, and many others.

Following that theme of supporting early innovation, the conference featured two panels that served to highlight the work of students and alumni and their energy-related startup companies. First, a startup showcase, moderated by Catarina Madeira, the director of MITs Startup Exchange, featured presentations about seven recent spinoff companies that are developing cutting-edge technologies that emerged from MIT research. These included:

Later in the conference, a student slam competition featured presentations by 11 students who described results of energy projects they had been working on this past summer. The projects were as diverse as analyzing opposition to wind farms in Maine, how best to allocate EV charging stations, optimizing bioenergy production, recycling the lithium from batteries, encouraging adoption of heat pumps, and conflict analysis about energy project siting. Attendees voted on the quality of the student presentations, and electrical engineering and computer science student Tori Hagenlocker was declared first-place winner for her talk on heat pump adoption.

Students were also featured in a first-time addition to the conference: a panel discussion among five current or recent students, giving their perspective on todays energy issues and priorities, and how they are working toward trying to make a difference. Andres Alvarez, a recent graduate in nuclear engineering, described his work with a startup focused on identifying and supporting early-stage ideas that have potential. Graduate student Dyanna Jaye of urban studies and planning spoke about her work helping to launch a group called the Sunrise Movement to try to drive climate change as a top priority for the country, and her work helping to develop the Green New Deal.

Peter Scott, a graduate student in mechanical engineering who is studying green hydrogen production, spoke of the need for a very drastic and rapid phaseout of current, existing fossil fuels and a halt on developing new sources. Amar Dayal, an MBA candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management, talked about the interplay between technology and policy, and the crucial role that legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act can have in enabling new energy technology to make the climb to commercialization. And Shreyaa Raghavan, a doctoral student in the Institute of Data, Systems, and Society, talked about the importance of multidisciplinary approaches to climate issues, including the important role of computer science. She added that MIT does well on this compared to other institutions, and sustainability and decarbonization is a pillar in a lot of the different departments and programs that exist here.

Some recent recipients of MITEIs Seed Fund grants reported on their progress in a panel discussion moderated by MITEI Executive Director Martha Broad. Seed grant recipient Ariel Furst, a professor of chemical engineering, pointed out that access to electricity is very much concentrated in the global North and that, overall, one in 10 people worldwide lacks access to electricity and some 2.5 billion people rely on dirty fuels to heat their homes and cook their food, with impacts on both health and climate. The solution her project is developing involves using DNA molecules combined with catalysts to passively convert captured carbon dioxide into ethylene, a widely used chemical feedstock and fuel. Kerri Cahoy, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics, described her work on a system for monitoring methane emissions and power-line conditions by using satellite-based sensors. She and her team found that power lines often begin emitting detectable broadband radio frequencies long before they actually fail in a way that could spark fires.

Admir Masic, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, described work on mining the ocean for minerals such as magnesium hydroxide to be used for carbon capture. The process can turn carbon dioxide into solid material that is stable over geological times and potentially usable as a construction material. Kripa Varanasi, a professor of mechanical engineering, said that over the years MITEI seed funding helped some of his projects that went on to become startup companies, and some of them are thriving. He described ongoing work on a new kind of electrolyzer for green hydrogen production. He developed a system using bubble-attracting surfaces to increase the efficiency of bioreactors that generate hydrogen fuel.

A series of panel discussions over the two days covered a range of topics related to technologies and policies that could make a difference in combating climate change. On the technological side, one panel led by Randall Field, the executive director of MITEIs Future Energy Systems Center, looked at large, hard-to-decarbonize industrial processes. Antoine Allanore, a professor of metallurgy, described progress in developing innovative processes for producing iron and steel, among the worlds most used commodities, in a way that drastically reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Greg Wilson of JERA Americas described the potential for ammonia produced from renewable sources to substitute for natural gas in power plants, greatly reducing emissions. Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor in materials science and engineering, described ways to decarbonize cement production using a novel low-temperature process. And Guiyan Zang, a research scientist at MITEI, spoke of efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of producing ethylene, a major industrial chemical, by using an electrochemical process.

Another panel, led by Jacopo Buongiorno, professor of nuclear science and engineering, explored the brightening future for expansion of nuclear power, including new, small, modular reactors that are finally emerging into commercial demonstration. There is for the first time truly here in the U.S. in at least a decade-and-a-half, a lot of excitement, a lot of attention towards nuclear, Buongiorno said. Nuclear power currently produces 45 to 50 percent of the nations carbon-free electricity, the panelists said, and with the first new nuclear power plant in decades now in operation, the stage is set for significant growth.

Carbon capture and sequestration was the subject of a panel led by David Babson, the executive director of MITs Climate Grand Challenges program. MIT professors Betar Gallant and Kripa Varanasi and industry representatives Elisabeth Birkeland from Equinor and Luc Huyse from Chevron Technology Ventures described significant progress in various approaches to recovering carbon dioxide from power plant emissions, from the air, and from the ocean, and converting it into fuels, construction materials, or other valuable commodities.

Some panel discussions also addressed the financial and policy side of the climate issue. A panel on geopolitical implications of the energy transition was moderated by MITEI Deputy Director of Policy Christopher Knittel, who said energy has always been synonymous with geopolitics. He said that as concerns shift from where to find the oil and gas to where is the cobalt and nickel and other elements that will be needed, not only are we worried about where the deposits of natural resources are, but were going to be more and more worried about how governments are incentivizing the transition to developing this new mix of natural resources. Panelist Suzanne Berger, an Institute professor, said were now at a moment of unique openness and opportunity for creating a new American production system, one that is much more efficient and less carbon-producing.

One panel dealt with the investors perspective on the possibilities and pitfalls of emerging energy technologies. Moderator Jacqueline Pless, an assistant professor in MIT Sloan, said theres a lot of momentum now in this space. Its a really ripe time for investing, but the risks are real. Tons of investment is needed in some very big and uncertain technologies.

The role that large, established companies can play in leading a transition to cleaner energy was addressed by another panel. Moderator J.J. Laukatis, MITEIs director of member services, said that the scale of this transformation is massive, and it will also be very different from anything weve seen in the past. Were going to have to scale up complex new technologies and systems across the board, from hydrogen to EVs to the electrical grid, at rates we havent done before. And doing so will require a concerted effort that includes industry as well as government and academia.

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How to decarbonize the world, at scale - MIT News

To determine whether a patient has cancer, a bodily fluid sample is taken, exposed in a vial to several types of DNAwrapped carbon nanotubes, and the fluorescence of each nanotube is recorded. One of the goals of the project, DNA-Nanocarbon Hybrid Materials for Perception-Based, Analyte-Agnostic Sensing, is to have an automated disease detection system into which data about a bodily fluid can be inputted.

The NSF project focuses on how the system works and how it can be improved. Some of the fundamental questions researchers are looking to answer, according to Jagota, include, Is there a rationale for why the nanotubes hybridized with DNA can detect diseases? and What is the mechanism by which it detects?

One issue is that the modulation of fluorescence of the DNA-carbon nanotubes isnt very specific, meaning a shift in fluorescence can be triggered by one of many biomarkers, not just, in this case, by the ones that reveal a patient has cancer.

Most people, they'll say, Ah, that's useless. You can't use this for sensing, Jagota says.

With many other molecules present in blood, its essentially impossible for any single type of DNA-carbon nanotube to detect whether a cancer biomarker is present. To account for a mixture of molecules in the sample, many types of DNA-nanotubes are needed for collective analysis, he says.

You try to ask the question did they all shift in some way? Jagota says. Can I train this system? Can I expose it to different combinations of different concentrations of my analyte and look at the output, and from that output, can I train a machine-learning algorithm? Can I train a black box which says, You tell me how each one of these shifted and I'll tell you whether this molecule was present or not?

By identifying and using a number of sensors, researchers can be more confident theyre finding what is associated with a biomarker and not something else in the blood, Davison says. That could lead to figuring out how to detect other characteristics or disease states in people.

If there's nothing there at all, there's sort of a baseline fluorescence that will happen, Davison says. When one of these nanotubes has attached to some other molecule, then it can change how it fluoresces either by increasing the brightness or changing the frequency and those are the things that we're measuring.

Davison used the human nose as an analogy for the work theyre doing: Inside the nose, there are different receptors for scent, but its not as simple as one scent per sensor. A collection of sensors activating is what allows people to recognize a particular smell.

The researchers dont want to have to rely on one sensor in this project; they want a set of sensors detectingor not detectinga recognizable pattern.

A big worry for us is that we could have lots of conflicting compounds that are discoverable in blood that aren't what we're looking for, but similarly excite the sensors that we have, Davison says.

One of the broader questions the NSF project asks, according to Davison, is how can they identify the best set of sensors, which they expect need to be as diverse as possible.

Davisons area of the project is in machine learning. He says one of the challenges includes building reliable prediction systems with little data. Unlike big tech companies, such as Google or Meta, which have millions of data points, Davison says theyre more likely to have just a few hundred data points because their data corresponds to real patients.

How can we be as accurate as possible even though we have a small data set to work with? Davison asks.

He says they also have to figure out how to represent the data gathered. For instance, should measurements gathered from the fluorescence of the sample be represented directly with the wavelengths, in the differences or something else?

A separate National Institutes of Health award aims to make the process suitable for clinical practice. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is the lead on the NIH project with researchers from Lehigh, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and a collaborator from the University of Maryland contributing.

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NSF Award to Aid Interdisciplinary Researchers in Detecting Cancer - Lehigh University

Department: School of Computer Science and Engineering

Position: Professor/Associate Professor/Assistant Professor

Description

School of Computer Science and Engineering (Former Faculty of Information Technology) is one of the first four faculties established in the newly founded Macau University of Science and Technology in 2000. It offers a comprehensive suite of degrees: Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. It has strong research programs with support from Macau Science and Technology Development Fund, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Ministry of Science and Technology of the Peoples Republic of China.

To cope with our developmental plan, applications are invited from those with excellent academic achievements in the following areas:

Qualifications

Remuneration Package

Remuneration and appointment rank offered will be commensurate with the successful applicants academic qualification, professional experience and current position. Medical benefits, annual leave, provident fund, allowance and bonus, on job training program or overseas study opportunities will be provided by the University.

Application Procedure

Qualified candidates should apply the position online at the Universitys careers site (https://www.must.edu.mo/en/careers) and upload an up-to-date curriculum vitae with expected salary, copies of ID/passport, certified copies of academic certificates, transcripts, testimonial of professional experience, publications and academic research outline etc.

To browse for more information about MUST, please visit https://www.must.edu.mo/en

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Professor/Associate Professor/Assistant Professor, School of ... - Times Higher Education

Schools expanded the availability of foundational computer science classes this year at a faster clip than at any other time in the past five years, but stubborn gaps in access to those courses persist, concludes Code.orgs annual report on the state of computer science education.

Overall, 57.5 percent of high schools offer foundational computer science courses, a 4.5 percentage point jump over last year, the largest since 2018. But only 5.8 percent of high school students are enrolled in those courses in the 35 states where data is available. That percentage is similar to the percentage a year ago.

There are also gaps in access with respect to race, gender, English learner and special education status, geography, and income, Code.org found. For instance, 89 percent of Asian students and 82 percent of white students can take foundational computer science courses, whereas 67 percent of Native American students have such access.

Closing those gaps is particularly important as tools powered by artificial intelligencewhich have already become a force in other industries such as health care and businessbecome even more ubiquitous, the report says.

Learning fundamental computer science concepts gives students a deeper insight into how AI systems work, which benefits those building technologies that utilize AI and those who need to make decisions about AI in their personal lives, the report says. Foundational computer science and AI literacy will result in more diverse, critical creators and consumers of AI.

Other equity gaps in access to foundational computer science courses highlighted in Code.orgs research include:

The report outlines how policymakers and educators can help close these gaps. One significant move is for states to make computer science a graduation requirement. Thats something eight states have done so far: Arkansas, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

Additionally, while Maryland and Mississippi havent created a specific computer science requirement, taking computer science courses is the primary way to fulfill an existing graduation requirement.

Having a computer science graduation requirement seems to be making a difference in Arkansas when it comes to gender. The state adopted the requirement in 2021, for the graduating class of 2026. This year, 43 percent of females in the states 9th grade class were enrolled in a foundational computer science class, 12 percentage points higher than the national average for all females in high school.

We are excited to see an increase in the number of high school students completing multiple computer science courses before graduation, said Kelly Griffin, the director of computer science education at the Arkansas Department of Education, in a statement cited in the report. These students develop a strong foundation that can be utilized in current and future careers.

States can also require all schools to offer computer science classes, the report recommended. For instance, even though Georgias requirement that all high schools offer computer science education wont kick in until the 2024-25 school year, the state is already seeing signs of progress.

Seventy-one percent of high schools in Georgia now offer foundational computer science classes. Theres been increased representation in those courses from female students, Hispanic students, students in special education, and English learners, though equity gaps remain, the report said.

Bringing computer science courses to high school is a key first step in building a workforce where these skills are likely to have deep value, the report concluded.

When exposure and access are in place, students confidence to pursue opportunities beyond their computer science K12 education becomes a reality, because students have become computer science advocates, said Maria Camarena, a computer science teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, in a statement featured in the report.

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Computer Science Courses Are on the RiseBut Girls Are Still Half as Likely to Take It - Education Week