The mission of MIT is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
The Institute is committed to generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring this knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges. MIT is dedicated to providing its students with an education that combines rigorous academic study and the excitement of discovery with the support and intellectual stimulation of a diverse campus community. We seek to develop in each member of the MIT community the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind.
The Institute admitted its first students in 1865, four years after the approval of its founding charter. The opening marked the culmination of an extended effort by William Barton Rogers, a distinguished natural scientist, to establish a new kind of independent educational institution relevant to an increasingly industrialized America. Rogers stressed the pragmatic and practicable. He believed that professional competence is best fostered by coupling teaching and research and by focusing attention on real-world problems. Toward this end, he pioneered the development of the teaching laboratory.
Today MIT is a world-class educational institution. Teaching and research—with relevance to the practical world as a guiding principle—continue to be its primary purpose. MIT is independent, coeducational, and privately endowed. Its five schools and one college encompass numerous academic departments, divisions, and degree-granting programs, as well as interdisciplinary centers, laboratories, and programs whose work cuts across traditional departmental boundaries.
AI systems with deceptive capabilities could be misused in numerous ways by bad actors. Or, they may become prone to behaving in ways their creators never intended.
Janet Echelman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Artist Janet Echelman explains how she collaborates with engineers to create massive sculptures that have changed city landscapes and inspired people around the world.
Robert Mahari, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Jessica Fjeld, Harvard Law School, and Ziv Epstein, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Intellectual property law wasn’t written with AI in mind, so it isn’t clear who owns the images that emerge from prompts – or if the artists whose work was scraped to train AI models should be paid.
In a plot reminiscent of the 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow?, Australian scientists are warning that the Southern Ocean’s deep “overturning” circulation is slowing and headed for collapse.
With more than 5,000 known exoplanets, astronomers are shifting their focus from discovering additional distant worlds to identifying which are good candidates for further study.
Today’s anchors on politically slanted news programs feed anger and polarization with their wild claims. Their ancestor is a character from ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ – with one big difference.
Kate W. Isaacs, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
When ideological enemies talk across their great divides, something good can happen – it reduces stereotypes and inflammatory language directed at people who don’t agree on the abortion rights issue.
La France avait mis en place une lourde politique fiscale visant à faire financer la colonisation par les territoires africains. Après les indépendances, cet héritage a été largement conservé.
La France a utilisé le Sahara algérien pour effectuer ses premiers essais nucléaires. Un choix qui irrite le tout jeune État algérien, dont l’indépendance date du 5 juillet 1962.
Kyle Mahowald, The University of Texas at Austin and Anna A. Ivanova, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Fluent expression is not always evidence of a mind at work, but the human brain is primed to believe so. A pair of cognitive linguistics experts explain why language is not a good test of sentience.
Robert Langer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Moderna co-founder Robert Langer developed the process that made COVID-19 vaccines possible. He spoke about his journey helping develop the science for various lifesaving treatments.
The risk from heat waves is about more than intensity – being able to cool off is essential, and that’s hard to find in many low-income areas of the world.