But Michael Fanous, a UC Berkeley computer science graduate and former machine learning engineer at CareRev, argues that these agents are currently missing a critical piece of the puzzle: the full context required to truly understand the people they are programmed to serve. Fanous claims that machines currently struggle to discern whether a person's professional profile on LinkedIn, their activity on Instagram, and their public government records all belong to the same human being. To solve this, he teamed up with his father, Emad Fanous, a veteran CTO, to build Nyne, a startup aiming to become the intelligence layer that helps agents understand humans across their entire digital footprint. On Friday, Nyne announced it raised $5.3 million in seed funding led by Wischoff Ventures and South Park Commons, with participation from several angel investors, including Gil Elbaz, the co-founder of Applied Semantics and a pioneer of Google AdSense. While it may seem that Nyne is tackling an issue already solved by classic machine learning ' given how effective Google's ad targeting is at identifying its users ' CEO Michael Fanous argues otherwise. Google's 'secret sauce' is its exclusive access to users' search histories and cross-platform activity, a data advantage the tech giant will never share with external agents, he said....

When the computer game Doom was released in 1993, its utility for science wasn't immediately clear. Since then, the first-person shooter has been used in many studies, from helping to improve artificial-intelligence models1 to investigating the effects of video games on memory and aggression2. It has also spawned a subculture in which fans and developers, including scientists, try to run the game on different devices ' from calculators to digital pregnancy tests. Last month, scientists in Australia reported that they had taught neurons grown on a silicon chip to play the game. The phrases 'Can it run Doom'' and 'It runs Doom' have become a popular Internet meme. Alon Loeffler, a synthetic-biological-intelligence scientist who was part of the team at biotechnology company Cortical Labs in Melbourne, Australia, which trained the neurons, says the team chose Doom because of the meme. He and his colleagues first taught neurons to play the classic video game Pong in 2021. Doom, with its more complex environment, was a natural next step, he says, because 'the Internet always asks, 'Can it play Doom'''...

In its announcement of the rankings, the publication noted MIT's school of management tops the list 'at a time of sharpening focus from students on the importance of technology, including artificial intelligence, as they prepare for disruptions in the workplace.' Global education editor Andrew Jack said in the Financial Times News Briefing podcast that MIT is 'very much at the center of the tech revolution that we are seeing.' He added, 'there's no question that we're talking more and more about artificial intelligence and expertise around some of the technical skills related and notably how you might apply AI in the workplace. That certainly reflects both its technical and engineering computer science skills historically. And [MIT Sloan] is doing a lot with those other departments in the university. So I think that says something very much about how the wider job market and the aspirations of students are evolving.' 'MIT Sloan operates at the intersection of management and technology,' says Richard Locke, the John C Head III Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management. 'Our students and alumni are employing artificial intelligence to solve complex problems in the world and across industries. At MIT Sloan, we focus on doing that work in a way that centers human capabilities, ensuring artificial intelligence extends what humans can do to improve organizations and the world.'...

Two outstanding MIT educators have been named MacVicar Faculty Fellows: professor of mechanical engineering Amos Winter and professor of electrical engineering and computer science Nickolai Zeldovich. For more than 30 years, the MacVicar Faculty Fellows Program has recognized exemplary and sustained contributions to undergraduate education at MIT. The program is named in honor of Margaret MacVicar, MIT's first dean for undergraduate education and founder of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). Fellows are chosen through an annual and highly competitive nomination process. The Registrar's Office coordinates and administers the award on behalf of the Division of Graduate and Undergraduate Education. Nominations are reviewed by an advisory committee, and the provost selects the fellows. A hallmark of Winter's pedagogy is the way he connects technical learning and core engineering science with real-world impacts. His approach keeps students actively engaged and encourages critical thinking while developing their competence and confidence as design engineers. Current graduate student Ariel Mobius '24 writes, 'Professor Winter is a transformative educator. He successfully blends rigorous technical instruction with lessons on problem scoping and hands-on learning and backs it all up with personalized mentorship. He is a committed advocate for his students and has fundamentally shaped my path as a mechanical engineer.'...