CSAIL Impact Report

10 Years of CSAIL Innovation

Edited by Adam Conner-Simons and Daniela Rus, PhD

About the Authors

Adam Conner-Simons

Adam is a seasoned technology writer and communications professional with nearly 20 years of experience in communications, including eight years overseeing efforts for CSAIL. A Boston-based freelance journalist who has written for outlets that include the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Slate Magazine, and HuffPo, he has also previously led communications teams at such institutions as Brandeis University and Cornell University. He has also regularly spoken about communications issues at conferences for organizations such as the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the National Association of Science Writers (NASW).

Daniela Rus, PhD

Daniela is the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and MIT and has served as Director of CSAIL since 2012. In that role she has helped the lab grow beyond 1500 members, including 132 faculty and more than 500 graduate students, postdocs and researchers. She is also Deputy Dean of Research for Schwarzman College of Computing at MIT. Her research interests are in robotics, artificial intelligence, and data science, with a focus on developing the science and engineering of autonomy, and the long-term objective of enabling a future more seamlessly integrating computing systems into human environments to support both cognitive and physical tasks. She is a Class of 2002 MacArthur Fellow, a fellow of ACM, AAAI and IEEE, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

INTRODUCTION INITIATIVES

RESEARCH

COMMUNITY BUILDING

INDEX OF PHDs

INTRODUCTION

Clockwise from Left: Former lab directors Patrick Winston, Anant Agarwal, Victor Zue, Edward Fredkin, Rodney Brooks, Bob Fano (in tie) and current director Daniela Rus

For more than 60 years, MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has pioneered approaches to computing that improve how people work, play, and learn. As we stand on the precipice of an exciting new era, CSAIL is especially well-positioned to make impactful contributions. Our researchers are helping to build the future by developing fundamental technologies and conducting basic research that furthers the field of computing and its applications. At CSAIL, no question is too crazy, no future too far off. We take pride in imagining the impossible and then looking for ways to make it possible. We aim to contribute toward a future in which computing empowers people and enhances all of our experiences.

The CSAIL research community has always had big dreams. It developed the first time-shared computers, the first computer algebra engine, the first mobile robots, and the first computer vision systems. We established the foundations of computer networking, e-commerce, and the fundamentals of today’s computing infrastructure, from work on programming languages like CLU and LISP to inventions in cryptography such as RSA and zero-knowledge protocols.

These kinds of innovations continue to this day. Our theoretical work has included new optimizations to classic algorithmic challenges,1 and new ways to learn from different data modalities.2 We’ve worked to inject more fairness3 into machine learning models, and used AI to recommend personalized cancer screening guidelines.4 We’re building robots for everyday life, from highly dexterous hands5 to ingestible mini-bots6 for medicine delivery. We’ve created new data-compression methods,7 tools for automatic bug repair 8 and near-instant code generation,9 and even carbon-nanotube microprocessors10 that could one day be more effective and energy-efficient than silicon. We’ve produced wearables for health-monitoring and motion sensing,11 as well as systems that can do all that just with wireless signals.12

Our work in algorithms and machine learning has allowed us to predict traffic accidents,13 preserve fiber-optic networks,14 detect dementia,15 develop new antibiotics,16 and even help take the first-ever image of a black hole.17

CSAIL represents a vibrant community of inventive problem solvers. We have over 1500 members, including 132 faculty representing 11 academic departments, five schools, and the Schwarzman College of Computing, as well as over 500 graduate students and postdocs, researchers, staff members, MENG students, UROP participants. Individual distinctions include 9 Turing awards, 8 MacArthur fellowships, 28 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 13 members of the National Academy of Science, 1 member of the National Academy of Medicine, and 30 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. We nurture the careers of all community members, emphasizing service, collegiality, mentorship, inclusivity, collaboration, transparency, and self-improvement.

We have grown significantly over the last decade, nearly doubling in size since 2012, and increasing our research volume 60 percent to $85 million. We are the biggest research lab at MIT, which says a lot for how central computer science has become to virtually all elements of science and technology. But what really sets CSAIL apart is not its size, but the passion that researchers bring to tackling the most profound challenges in computing. Lab members have projects underway in almost all aspects of computing systems, theory, and artificial intelligence. Our lab members are always looking to create better, deeper, richer algorithms. They are building intelligent computers that interact with the world and process information more naturally than ever before. They are finding new ways for their work to add value to disciplines far beyond the walls of the lab, from mathematics and physics to biology and medicine.

CSAIL is always thinking big in terms of impact and scope. But we also see a few areas of opportunity in particular, which is why we have dedicated initiatives across several key areas of research. Our first initiative, 2012’s Bigdata@CSAIL, aimed to develop new technologies for big data insights and explore challenges and opportunities across sectors like cloud computing and data management. Soon after we launched Wireless@MIT to help improve spectrum use, build energy-efficient designs and systems for largescale mobile applications, and establish better wireless security and privacy. Cybersecurity@CSAIL was designed as a holistic effort to treat cybersecurity as a fundamental aspect of systems, protecting against the next generation of attacks on mobile phones, personal computers, networks and

the cloud. The CSAIL Robotics Center focused on designing increasingly capable robots that can intelligently interact and perform useful tasks in human environments Their goal with the Toyota Research Institute is to create a car that will never be responsible for a collision and can augment its owner’s driving experience.

The lab also launched Fintech@CSAIL for the finance sector, MachineLearningApplications@CSAIL for a range of domains, and an effort on the Future Of Data, Trust, And Privacy that addresses some of the greatest challenges around data-centric computing. The Trustworthy AI initiative has worked with Microsoft and DSTA to explore unconventional computational models that are robust and explainable. In 2019 we also partnered with the MIT Lincoln Laboratory and the Air Force on national security efforts, advancing the science and engineering of AI and its use in disaster relief, weather modeling, and medical readiness. The collaboration vividly showed that there are few challenges more important to national defense than ensuring the preparedness, safety and quality of our pilots.

This wide breath of initiatives highlight our focus on interdisciplinary collaboration. Whether it’s private sector companies like Toyota Research Institute, or government agencies like the Air Force, we’re always actively pursuing opportunities to work with the best thinkers in every field. These collaborations help us tackle problems with deeper levels of insight and make sure that our innovative ideas actually make people’s lives better.

Computing pioneer Mark Weiser, the former chief scientist at Xerox PARC, once said that “the most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” This sums up where the field is headed. Computers surround us, in our homes, on our desks, even in our pockets. They have made our lives easier in a million different ways we don’t even notice, from online shopping to digital cameras, from anti-lock brakes to electronic health records and everything in between. Computing helps us with so many of “the little things” in our lives, but is also vital to our most important challenges: developing individualized healthcare, creating safer medicines, reducing poverty, reversing climate change, and even traveling to the stars.

CSAIL research will enable a future where machines are capable of intelligent reasoning, perception, and behavior in a way that will support us

as a society. It’s the sort of future where democratized programming knowledge can be used to help us manage our technologies and where we can trust the security of our programs and the privacy of our data. It will be a future where we use all that power to make great leaps forward in life-saving fields like health care and disaster preparedness. Studying existing methods alone will not get the job done. We need major advances and new ideas to drive our field forward. And we need to embrace our responsibility to the world for the tools we develop, to ensure we’re making the world better for everyone and not just the lucky few. We ultimately are the ones responsible for this planet and everything living on it—from future generations to all the plants and animals we share this planet with. It’s our privilege to be the only species advanced, aware, and capable enough to build extraordinary computation and AI tools—but that also means it’s our responsibility to put them to good use. I remain convinced that we have the power to harness their power to ensure a better future for all of humanity.

—Daniela Rus, Director of CSAIL