AI Impact Papers: Preprints of Round 1

Dear members of the MIT community,

Last fall, Provost Barnhart and I were delighted to provide more than two dozen research teams from across MIT with seed funds to develop impact papers that would articulate effective roadmaps, policy recommendations, and calls for action across the broad domain of generative AI and its effects on society.

Today, I write to share preprint versions from that first round of papers. These open access papers have been published online under the auspices of the MIT Open Publishing Services program from the MIT Press.

Because generative AI’s impacts are so consequential and the field is moving so fast, we are taking the unusual step of sharing these papers early in the process. The preprints have been read by selected MIT experts, but none have yet gone through formal peer review. We look forward to continued development of these ideas and their further impact.

And the progress continues: Because the response was so strong to our first call for abstracts, last fall we issued a second one. Sixteen projects were just selected for that second round; you can read more in this MIT News article. We expect to follow up with a similar preprint announcement about them once the full papers are ready.

I’d like to express my appreciation to all of you who submitted ideas and developed the current round of impact papers. As I note in the preface, this collection offers a glimpse of a wide range of brilliant MIT minds at work on some of the most daunting challenges of our time. Exploring such frontiers is what the world counts on MIT for!

I also offer special thanks to Schwarzman College Dean Dan Huttenlocher and Deputy Dean Asu Ozdaglar, who co-chaired the review and award process; to all the members of the review committee and the staff; and to Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of the School of Engineering and chief innovation and strategy officer, who provided valuable guidance in planning the seed funding program.

Sincerely,

Sally Kornbluth
President