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How to increase the rate of plastics recycling
While recycling systems and bottle deposits have become increasingly widespread in the U.S., actual rates of recycling are “abysmal,” according to a team of MIT researchers who studied the rates for recycling of PET, the plastic commonly used in beverage bottles. However, their findings suggest some ways to change this.
The present rate of recycling for PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, bottles nationwide is about 24 percent and has remained stagnant for a decade, the researchers say. But their study indicates that with a nationwide bottle deposit program, the rates could increase to 82 percent, with nearly two-thirds of all PET bottles being recycled into new bottles, at a net cost of just a penny a bottle when demand is robust. At the same time, they say, policies would be needed to ensure a sufficient demand for the recycled material.
The findings are being published today in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, in a paper by MIT professor of materials science and engineering Elsa Olivetti, graduate students Basuhi Ravi and Karan Bhuwalka, and research scientist Richard Roth.
The team looked at PET bottle collection and recycling rates in different states as well as other nations with and without bottle deposit policies, and with or without curbside recycling programs, as well as the inputs and outputs of various recycling companies and methods. The researchers say this study is the first to look in detail at the interplay between public policies and the end-to-end realities of the packaging production and recycling market.
They found that bottle deposit programs are highly effective in the areas where they are in place, but at present there is not nearly enough collection of used bottles to meet the targets set by the packaging industry. Their analysis suggests that a uniform nationwide bottle deposit policy could achieve the levels of recycling that have been mandated by proposed legislation and corporate commitments.
The recycling of PET is highly successful in terms of quality, with new products made from all-recycled material virtually matching the qualities of virgin material. And brands have shown that new bottles can be safely made with 100 percent postconsumer waste. But the team found that collection of the material is a crucial bottleneck that leaves processing plants unable to meet their needs. However, with the right policies in place, “one can be optimistic,” says Olivetti, who is the Jerry McAfee Professor in Engineering and the associate dean of the School of Engineering.
“A message that we have found in a number of cases in the recycling space is that if you do the right work to support policies that think about both the demand but also the supply,” then significant improvements are possible, she says. “You have to think about the response and the behavior of multiple actors in the system holistically to be viable,” she says. “We are optimistic, but there are many ways to be pessimistic if we’re not thinking about that in a holistic way.”
For example, the study found that it is important to consider the needs of existing municipal waste-recovery facilities. While expanded bottle deposit programs are essential to increase recycling rates and provide the feedstock to companies recycling PET into new products, the current facilities that process material from curbside recycling programs will lose revenue from PET bottles, which are a relatively high-value product compared to the other materials in the recycled waste stream. These companies would lose a source of their income if the bottles are collected through deposit programs, leaving them with only the lower-value mixed plastics.
The researchers developed economic models based on rates of collection found in the states with deposit programs, recycled-content requirements, and other policies, and used these models to extrapolate to the nation as a whole. Overall, they found that the supply needs of packaging producers could be met through a nationwide bottle deposit system with a 10-cent deposit per bottle — at a net cost of about 1 cent per bottle produced when demand is strong. This need not be a federal program, but rather one where the implementation would be left up to the individual states, Olivetti says.
Other countries have been much more successful in implementing deposit systems that result in very high participation rates. Several European countries manage to collect more than 90 percent of PET bottles for recycling, for example. But in the U.S., less than 29 percent are collected, and after losses in the recycling chain about 24 percent actually get recycled, the researchers found. Whereas 73 percent of Americans have access to curbside recycling, presently only 10 states have bottle deposit systems in place.
Yet the demand is there so far. “There is a market for this material,” says Olivetti. While bottles collected through mixed-waste collection can still be recycled to some extent, those collected through deposit systems tend to be much cleaner and require less processing, and so are more economical to recycle into new bottles, or into textiles.
To be effective, policies need to not just focus on increasing rates of recycling, but on the whole cycle of supply and demand and the different players involved, Olivetti says. Safeguards would need to be in place to protect existing recycling facilities from the lost revenues they would suffer as a result of bottle deposits, perhaps in the form of subsidies funded by fees on the bottle producers, to avoid putting these essential parts of the processing chain out of business. And other policies may be needed to ensure the continued market for the material that gets collected, including recycled content requirements and extended producer responsibility regulations, the team found.
At this stage, it’s important to focus on the specific waste streams that can most effectively be recycled, and PET, along with many metals, clearly fit that category. “When we start to think about mixed plastic streams, that’s much more challenging from an environmental perspective,” she says. “Recycling systems need to be pursuing extended producers’ responsibility, or specifically thinking about materials designed more effectively toward recycled content,” she says.
It’s also important to address “what the right metrics are to design for sustainably managed materials streams,” she says. “It could be energy use, could be circularity [for example, making old bottles into new bottles], could be around waste reduction, and making sure those are all aligned. That’s another kind of policy coordination that’s needed.”
Summer 2024 recommended reading from MIT
MIT faculty and staff authors have published a plethora of books, chapters, and other literary contributions in the past year. The following titles represent some of their works published in the past 12 months.
Looking for more literary works from the MIT community? Enjoy our book lists from 2023, 2022, and 2021.
Happy reading!
Novel, memoir, and poetry
“Seizing Control: Managing Epilepsy and Others’ Reactions to It — A Memoir” (Haley’s, 2023)
By Laura Beretsky, grant writer in the MIT Introduction to Technology, Engineering, and Science (MITES) program
Beretsky’s memoir, “Seizing Control,” details her journey with epilepsy, discrimination, and a major surgical procedure to reduce her seizures. After two surgical interventions, she has been seizure-free for eight years, though she notes she will always live with epilepsy.
“Sky. Pond. Mouth.” (Yas Press, 2024)
By Kevin McLellan, staff member in MIT’s Program in Art, Culture, and Technology
In this book of poetry, physical and emotional qualities free-range between the animate and inanimate as though the world is written with dotted lines. With chiseled line breaks, intriguing meta-poetic levels, and punctuation like seed pods, McLellan’s poems, if we look twice, might flourish outside the book’s margin, past the grow light of the screen, even (especially) other borderlines we haven’t begun to imagine.
Science and engineering
“The Visual Elements: Handbooks for Communicating Science and Engineering” (University of Chicago Press, 2023 and 2024)
By Felice Frankel, research scientist in chemical engineering
Each of the two books in the “Visual Elements” series focuses on a different aspect of scientific visual communication: photography on one hand and design on the other. Their unifying goal is to provide guidance for scientists and engineers who must communicate their work with the public, for grant applications, journal submissions, conference or poster presentations, and funding agencies. The books show researchers the importance of presenting their work in clear, concise, and appealing ways that also maintain scientific integrity.
“A Book of Waves” (Duke University Press, 2023)
By Stefan Helmreich, professor of anthropology
In this book, Helmreich examines ocean waves as forms of media that carry ecological, geopolitical, and climatological news about our planet. Drawing on ethnographic work with oceanographers and coastal engineers in the Netherlands, the United States, Australia, Japan, and Bangladesh, he details how scientists at sea and in the lab apprehend waves’ materiality through abstractions, seeking to capture in technical language these avatars of nature at once periodic and irreversible, wild and pacific, ephemeral and eternal.
“An Introduction to System Safety Engineering” (MIT Press, 2023)
By Nancy G. Leveson, professor of aeronautics and astronautics
Preventing accidents and losses in complex systems requires a holistic perspective that can accommodate unprecedented types of technology and design. Leveson’s book covers the history of safety engineering; explores risk, ethics, legal frameworks, and policy implications; and explains why accidents happen and how to mitigate risks in modern, software-intensive systems. It includes accounts of well-known accidents like the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents, examining their causes and how to prevent similar incidents in the future.
“Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again” (University of Chicago Press, 2024)
By Susan Solomon, the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies and Chemistry
We solved planet-threatening problems before, Solomon argues, and we can do it again. She knows firsthand what those solutions entail, as she gained international fame as the leader of a 1986 expedition to Antarctica, making discoveries that were key to healing the damaged ozone layer. She saw a path from scientific and public awareness to political engagement, international agreement, industry involvement, and effective action. Solomon connects this triumph to the stories of other past environmental victories — against ozone depletion, smog, pesticides, and lead — to extract the essential elements of what makes change possible.
Culture, humanities, and social sciences
“Political Rumors: Why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight It” (Princeton University Press, 2023)
By Adam Berinsky, professor of political science
Political rumors pollute the political landscape. But if misinformation crowds out the truth, how can democracy survive? Berinsky examines why political rumors exist and persist despite their unsubstantiated and refuted claims, who is most likely to believe them, and how to combat them. He shows that a tendency toward conspiratorial thinking and vehement partisan attachment fuel belief in rumors. Moreover, in fighting misinformation, it is as important to target the undecided and the uncertain as it is the true believers.
“Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China,” (Princeton University Press, 2023)
By Tristan Brown, assistant professor of history
In “Laws of the Land,” Brown tells the story of the important roles — especially legal ones — played by fengshui in Chinese society during China’s last imperial dynasty, the Manchu Qing (1644–1912). Employing archives from Mainland China and Taiwan that have only recently become available, this is the first book to document fengshui’s invocations in Chinese law during the Qing dynasty.
“Trouble with Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions” (Polity, 2024)
By Alex Byrne, professor of philosophy
MIT philosopher Alex Byrne knows that within his field, he’s very much in the minority when it comes to his views on sex and gender. In “Trouble with Gender,” Byrne suggests that some ideas regarding sex and gender have not been properly examined by philosophers, and he argues for a reasoned and civil conversation on the topic.
“Life at the Center: Haitians and Corporate Catholicism in Boston” (University of California Press, 2024)
By Erica Caple James, professor of medical anthropology and urban studies
In “Life at the Center,” James traces how faith-based and secular institutions in Boston have helped Haitian refugees and immigrants attain economic independence, health, security, and citizenship in the United States. The culmination of more than a decade of advocacy and research on behalf of the Haitians in Boston, this groundbreaking work exposes how Catholic corporations have strengthened — but also eroded — Haitians’ civic power.
“Portable Postsocialisms: New Cuban Mediascapes after the End of History” (University of Texas Press, 2024)
By Paloma Duong, associate professor of media studies/writing
Why does Cuban socialism endure as an object of international political desire, while images of capitalist markets consume Cuba’s national imagination? “Portable Postsocialisms” calls on a vast multimedia archive to offer a groundbreaking cultural interpretation of Cuban postsocialism. Duong examines songs, artworks, advertisements, memes, literature, jokes, and networks that refuse exceptionalist and exoticizing visions of Cuba.
“They All Made Peace — What Is Peace?” (University of Chicago Press, 2023)
Chapter by Lerna Ekmekcioglu, professor of history and director of the Program in Women’s and Gender Studies
In her chapter, Ekmekcioglu contends that the Treaty of Lausanne, which followed the first world war, is an often-overlooked event of great historical significance for Armenians. The treaty became the “birth certificate” of modern Turkey, but there was no redress for Armenians. The chapter uses new research to reconstruct the dynamics of the treaty negotiations, illuminating both Armenians’ struggles as well as the international community’s struggles to deliver consistent support for multiethnic, multireligious states.
“We’ve Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Care” (Portfolio, 2023)
By Amy Finkelstein, professor of economics, and Liran Einav
Few of us need convincing that the American health insurance system needs reform. But many existing proposals miss the point, focusing on expanding one relatively successful piece of the system or building in piecemeal additions. As Finkelstein and Einav point out, our health care system was never deliberately designed, but rather pieced together to deal with issues as they became politically relevant. The result is a sprawling, arbitrary, and inadequate mess that has left 30 million Americans without formal insurance. It’s time, the authors argue, to tear it all down and rebuild, sensibly and deliberately.
“At the Pivot of East and West: Ethnographic, Literary and Filmic Arts” (Duke University Press, 2023)
By Michael M.J. Fischer, professor of anthropology and of science and technology studies
In his latest book, Fischer examines documentary filmmaking and literature from Southeast Asia and Singapore for their para-ethnographic insights into politics, culture, and aesthetics. Continuing his project of applying anthropological thinking to the creative arts, Fischer exemplifies how art and fiction trace the ways in which taken-for-granted common sense changes over time speak to the transnational present and track signals of the future before they surface in public awareness.
“Lines Drawn across the Globe” (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023)
By Mary Fuller, professor of literature and chair of the faculty
Around 1600, English geographer and cleric Richard Hakluyt published a 2,000-page collection of travel narratives, royal letters, ships’ logs, maps, and more from over 200 voyages. In “Lines Drawn across the Globe,” Fuller traces the history of the book’s compilation and gives order and meaning to its diverse contents. From Sierra Leone to Iceland, from Spanish narratives of New Mexico to French accounts of the Saint Lawrence and Portuguese accounts of China, Hakluyt’s shaping of the book provides a conceptual map of the world’s regions and of England’s real and imagined relations to them.
“The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline” (Yale University Press, 2023)
By Yasheng Huang, the Epoch Foundation Professor of International Management and professor of global economics and management
According to Huang, the world is seeing a repeat of Chinese history during which restrictions on economic and political freedom created economic stagnation. The bottom line: “Without academic collaboration, without business collaboration, without technological collaborations, the pace of Chinese technological progress is going to slow down dramatically.”
“The Long First Millennium: Affluence, Architecture, and Its Dark Matter Economy” (Routledge, 2023)
By Mark Jarzombek, professor of the history and theory of architecture
Jarzombek’s book argues that long-distance trade in luxury items — such as diamonds, gold, cinnamon, scented woods, ivory, and pearls, all of which require little overhead in their acquisition and were relatively easy to transport — played a foundational role in the creation of what we would call “global trade” in the first millennium CE. The book coins the term “dark matter economy” to better describe this complex — though mostly invisible — relationship to normative realities. “The Long Millennium” will appeal to students, scholars, and anyone interested in the effect of trade on medieval society.
“World Literature in the Soviet Union” (Academic Studies Press, 2023)
Chapter by Maria Khotimsky, senior lecturer in Russian
Khotimsky’s chapter, “The Treasure Trove of World Literature: Shaping the Concept of World Literature in Post-Revolutionary Russia,” examines Vsemirnaia Literatura (World Literature), an early Soviet publishing house founded in 1919 in Petersburg that advanced an innovative canon of world literature beyond the European tradition. It analyzes the publishing house’s views on translation, focusing on book prefaces that reveal a search for a new evaluative system, adaptation to changing socio-cultural norms and reassessing the roles of readers, critics, and the very endeavor of translation.
“Dare to Invent the Future: Knowledge in the Service of and Through Problem-Solving” (MIT Press, 2023)
By Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, professor of science, technology, and society
In this provocative book — the first in a trilogy — Chakanetsa Mavhunga argues that our critical thinkers must become actual thinker-doers. Taking its title from one of Thomas Sankara’s most inspirational speeches, “Dare to Invent the Future” looks for moments in Africa’s story where precedents of critical thought and knowledge in service of problem-solving are evident to inspire readers to dare to invent such a knowledge system.
“Death, Dominance, and State-Building: The US in Iraq and the Future of American Military Intervention” (Oxford University Press, 2024)
By Roger Petersen, the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science
“Death, Dominance, and State-Building” provides the first comprehensive analytic history of post-invasion Iraq. Although the war is almost universally derided as one of the biggest foreign policy blunders of the post-Cold War era, Petersen argues that the course and conduct of the conflict is poorly understood. The book applies an accessible framework to a variety of case studies across time and region. It concludes by drawing lessons relevant to future American military interventions.
Technology, systems, and society
“Code Work: Hacking Across the U.S./México Techno-Borderlands” (Princeton University Press, 2023)
By Héctor Beltrán, assistant professor of anthropology
In this book, Beltrán examines Mexican and Latinx coders’ personal strategies of self-making as they navigate a transnational economy of tech work. Beltrán shows how these hackers apply concepts from the coding world to their lived experiences, deploying batches, loose coupling, iterative processing (looping), hacking, prototyping, and full-stack development in their daily social interactions — at home, in the workplace, on the dating scene, and in their understanding of the economy, culture, and geopolitics.
“Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines” (Penguin Random House, 2023)
By Joy Buolamwini SM ’17, PhD ’22, member of the Media Lab Director’s Circle
To many it may seem like recent developments in artificial intelligence emerged out of nowhere to pose unprecedented threats to humankind. But to Buolamwini, this moment has been a long time in the making. “Unmasking AI” is the remarkable story of how Buolamwini uncovered what she calls “the coded gaze” — evidence of encoded discrimination and exclusion in tech products. She shows how racism, sexism, colorism, and ableism can overlap and render broad swaths of humanity “excoded” and therefore vulnerable in a world rapidly adopting AI tools.
“Counting Feminicide: Data Feminism in Action” (MIT Press, 2024)
By Catherine D’Ignazio, associate professor of urban science and planning
“Counting Feminicide” brings to the fore the work of data activists across the Americas who are documenting feminicide, and challenging the reigning logic of data science by centering care, memory, and justice in their work. D’Ignazio describes the creative, intellectual, and emotional labor of feminicide data activists who are at the forefront of a data ethics that rigorously and consistently takes power and people into account.
“Rethinking Cyber Warfare: The International Relations of Digital Disruption” (Oxford University Press, 2024)
By R. David Edelman, research fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies
Fifteen years into the era of “cyber warfare,” are we any closer to understanding the role a major cyberattack would play in international relations — or to preventing one? Uniquely spanning disciplines and enriched by the insights of a leading practitioner, Edelman provides a fresh understanding of the role that digital disruption plays in contemporary international security.
“Model Thinking for Everyday Life: How to Make Smarter Decisions” (INFORMS, 2023)
By Richard Larson, professor post-tenure in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
Decisions are a part of everyday life, whether simple or complex. It’s all too easy to jump to Google for the answers, but where does that take us? We’re losing the ability to think critically and decide for ourselves. In this book, Larson asks readers to undertake a major mind shift in our everyday thought processes. Model thinking develops our critical thinking skills, using a framework of conceptual and mathematical tools to help guide us to full comprehension, and better decisions.
“Future[tectonics]: Exploring the intersection between technology, architecture and urbanism” (Parametric Architecture, 2024)
Chapter by Jacob Lehrer, project coordinator in the Department of Mathematics
In his chapter, “Garbage In, Garbage Out: How Language Models Can Reinforce Biases,” Lehrer discusses how inherent bias is baked into large data sets, like those used to train massive AI algorithms, and how society will need to reconcile with the inherent biases built into systems of power. He also attempts to reconcile with it himself, delving into the mathematics behind these systems.
“Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness” (Penguin Random House, 2024)
Chapter by Tod Machover, the Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music and Media; Rébecca Kleinberger SM ’14, PhD ’20; and Alexandra Rieger SM ’18, doctoral candidate in media arts and sciences
In their chapter, “Composing the Future of Health,” the co-authors discuss their approach to combining scientific research, technology innovation, and new composing strategies to create evidence-based, emotionally potent music that can delight and heal.
“The Heart and the Chip: Our Bright Future with Robots” (W. W. Norton and Company, 2024)
By Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; and Gregory Mone
In “The Heart and the Chip,” Rus and Mone provide an overview of the interconnected fields of robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, and reframe the way we think about intelligent machines while weighing the moral and ethical consequences of their role in society. Robots aren’t going to steal our jobs, they argue; they’re going to make us more capable, productive, and precise.
Education, business, finance, and social impact
“Disciplined Entrepreneurship Startup Tactics: 15 Tactics to Turn Your Business Plan Into a Business” (Wiley, 2024)
By Paul Cheek, executive director and entrepreneur in residence at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and senior lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management, with foreword by Bill Aulet, professor of the practice of entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan and managing director of the Martin Trust Center
Cheek provides a hands-on, practical roadmap to get from great idea to successful company with his actionable field guide to transforming your one great idea into a functional, funded, and staffed startup. Readers will find ground-level, down-and-dirty entrepreneurial tactics — like how to conduct advanced primary market research, market and sell to your first customers, and take a scrappy approach to building your first products — that keep young firms growing. These tactics maximize impact with limited resources.
“From Intention to Impact: A Practical Guide to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (MIT Press, 2024)
By Malia Lazu, lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management
In her new book, Lazu draws on her background as a community organizer, her corporate career as a bank president, and now her experience as a leading consultant to explain what has been holding organizations back and what they can do to become more inclusive and equitable. “From Intention to Impact” goes beyond “feel good” PR-centric actions to showcase the real work that must be done to create true and lasting change.
“The AFIRE Guide to U.S. Real Estate Investing” (Afire and McGraw Hill, 2024)
Chapter by Jacques Gordon, lecturer in the MIT Center for Real Estate
In his chapter, “The Broker and the Investment Advisor: A wide range of options,” Gordon discusses important financial topics including information for lenders and borrowers, joint ventures, loans and debt, comingled funds, bankruptcy, and Islamic finance.
“The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset That Drives Extraordinary Results” (Hachette Book Group, 2023)
By Andrew McAfee, principal research scientist and co-director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy
The geek way of management delivers excellent performance while offering employees a work environment that features high levels of autonomy and empowerment. In what Eric Schmidt calls a “handbook for disruptors,” “The Geek Way” reveals a new way to get big things done. It will change the way readers think about work, teams, projects, and culture, and give them the insight and tools to harness our human superpowers of learning and cooperation.
“Iterate: The Secret to Innovation in Schools” (Teaching Systems Lab, 2023)
By Justin Reich, associate professor in comparative media studies/writing
In “Iterate,” Reich delivers an insightful bridge between contemporary educational research and classroom teaching, showing readers how to leverage the cycle of experiment and experience to create a compelling and engaging learning environment. Readers learn how to employ a process of continuous improvement and tinkering to develop exciting new programs, activities, processes, and designs.
“red helicopter — a parable for our times: lead change with kindness (plus a little math)” (HarperCollins, 2024)
By James Rhee, senior lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management
Is it possible to be successful and kind? To lead a company or organization with precision and compassion? To honor who we are in all areas of our lives? While eloquently sharing a story of personal and professional success, Rhee presents a comforting yet bold solution to the dissatisfaction and worry we all feel in a chaotic and sometimes terrifying world.
“Routes to Reform: Education Politics in Latin America” (Oxford University Press, 2024)
By Ben Ross Schneider, the Ford International Professor of Political Science and faculty director of the MIT-Chile Program and MISTI Chile
In “Routes to Reform,” Ben Ross Schneider examines education policy throughout Latin America to show that reforms to improve learning — especially making teacher careers more meritocratic and less political — are possible. He demonstrates that contrary to much established theory, reform outcomes in Latin America depended less on institutions and broad coalitions, and more on micro-level factors like civil society organizations, teacher unions, policy networks, and technocrats.
“Wiring the Winning Organization: Liberating Our Collective Greatness through Slowification, Simplification, and Amplification” (IT Revolution, 2023)
By Steven J. Spear, senior lecturer in system dynamics at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Gene Kim
Organizations succeed when they design their processes, routines, and procedures to encourage employees to problem-solve and contribute to a common purpose. DevOps, Lean, and Agile got us part of the way. Now with “Wiring the Winning Organization,” Spear and Kim introduce a new theory of organizational management: Organizations win by using three mechanisms to slowify, simplify, and amplify, which systematically moves problem-solving from high-risk danger zones to low-risk winning zones.
“Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance” (Oxford University Press, 2024)
Chapter by Annie Thompson, lecturer in the MIT Center for Real Estate; Walter Torous, senior lecturer at the MIT Center for Real Estate; and William Torous
In their chapter, “What Causes Residential Mortgage Defaults?” the authors assess the voluminous research investigating why households default on their residential mortgages. A particular focus is oriented towards critically evaluating the recent application of causal statistical inference to residential defaults on mortgages.
“Data Is Everybody’s Business: The Fundamentals of Data Monetization” (MIT Press, 2023)
By Barbara H. Wixom, principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research (MIT CISR); Leslie Owens, senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and former executive director of MIT CISR; and Cynthia M. Beath
In “Data Is Everybody’s Business,” the authors offer a clear and engaging way for people across the entire organization to understand data monetization and make it happen. The authors identify three viable ways to convert data into money — improving work with data, wrapping products with data, and selling information offerings — and explain when to pursue each and how to succeed.
Arts, architecture, planning, and design
“The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Heritage, and Death” (Routledge, 2023)
Chapter by Laura Anderson Barbata, lecturer in MIT’s Program in Art, Culture, and Technology
This book provides an examination of death, dying, and human remains in museums and heritage sites around the world. In her chapter, “Julia Pastrana’s Long Journey Home,” Barbata describes the case of Julia Pastrana (1834-1860), an indigenous Mexican opera singer who suffered from hypertrichosis terminalis and hyperplasia gingival. Due to her appearance, Pastrana was exploited and exhibited for over 150 years, during her lifetime and after her early death in an embalmed state. Barbata sheds light on the ways in which the systems that justified Pastrana’s exploitation continue to operate today.
“Emergency INDEX: An Annual Document of Performance Practice, vol. 10” (Ugly Duckling Press, 2023)
Chapter by Gearoid Dolan, staff member in MIT’s Program in Art, Culture, and Technology
This “bible of performance art activity” documents performance projects from around the world. Dolan’s chapter describes “Protest ReEmbodied,” a performance that took place online during Covid-19 lockdown. The performance was a live version of the ongoing “Protest ReEmbodied” project, an app that individuals can download and run on their computer to be able to perform on camera, inserted into protest footage.
“Land Air Sea: Architecture and Environment in the Early Modern Era” (Brill, 2023)
Chapter by Caroline Murphy, the Clarence H. Blackall Career Development Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture
“Land Air Sea” positions the long Renaissance and 18th century as being vital for understanding how many of the concerns present in contemporary debates on climate change and sustainability originated in earlier centuries. Murphy’s chapter examines how Girolamo di Pace da Prato, a state engineer in the Duchy of Florence, understood and sought to mitigate the problems of alluvial flooding in the mid-sixteenth century, an era of exceptional aquatic and environmental volatility.
Miscellaneous
“Made Here: Recipes and Reflections From NYC’s Asian Communities” (Send Chinatown Love, 2023)
Chapter by Robin Zhang, postdoc in mathematics, and Diana Le
In their chapter, “Flushing: The Melting Pot’s Melting Pot,” the authors explore how Flushing, New York — whose Chinatown is the largest and fastest growing in the world — earned the title of the “melting pot’s melting pot” through its cultural history. Readers will walk down its streets past its snack stalls, fabric stores, language schools, hair salons, churches, and shrines, and you will hear English interspersed with Korean, several dialects of Chinese, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, and hundreds of other fibers that make up Flushing’s complex ethnolinguistic fabric.
50+ Best Photoshop Actions for Stunning Art Effects
Editing photos can be time-consuming, but Photoshop actions can streamline your workflow and produce stunning, professional results quickly.
To help you find the best options, we’ve curated a collection of art-inspired Photoshop actions to transform your photos. Whether you’re a digital designer, illustrator, or photographer, these actions will add creativity and style to your work.
Our selection includes effects to suit every taste. There’s something for everyone, from pencil sketches and watercolors to modern and pop art. These actions turn your photos into works of art, reflecting traditional painting and drawing techniques.
With just a few clicks, you can convert ordinary photos and graphics into oil paintings or create the nostalgic feel of vintage film. With these actions, you can have the artistic results you’ve always wanted!
The Top Art Effect Photoshop Actions for Creatives
Enamel Pin Photoshop Action
This Photoshop action styles photos into fun, colorful metal pins. With three metal colors to choose from, you have plenty of options here. This action works with text layers, vector shapes, and much more.
Cartoon Paint Photoshop Action
A cartoon action like this transforms everyday photos into fantastic artwork, adding a stylish aesthetic to your favorite shots. It works best with 2000x4000px dimension photos, delivering maximum style. It’s quick and easy to use, requiring no artistic talent!
Pencil Sketch Art Photoshop Action
Pencil sketches are a creative way to illustrate. This Photoshop action set lets you quickly add a sketching style to your photos. The set also includes brushes and patterns for added effects.
GlowArt Photoshop Action
Are you looking for a funky, contemporary feel in your photography? GlowArt is the Photoshop action for you. With a single click, it will add a vibrant glow to any photo.
Vintage Art Photoshop Action
Vintage effects add a timeless aesthetic to your favorite photos. They never go out of style and work well with portraits and landscapes. By applying this action, you will see your photos transform before your eyes.
Photo Art Gaming Photoshop Action
These Photoshop actions will style your images and graphics to look like video game covers. They’re especially useful for gamers sharing their artwork on social media. The pack also includes pattern sets.
Creative Art Photoshop Action
For an abstract effect, the Creative Art Photoshop action is hard to beat. It is well-suited for action and sports photos. With a few clicks, you’ll create stunning effects that almost seem as if they are in motion.
Vintage Effect Photoshop Action
Here is another Photoshop action with vintage styling. It converts photos to a faded, sepia tone and adds retro hues to every image you edit.
Movie Poster Art Photoshop Action
Movie posters have a unique style. With these Photoshop actions, you can bring that style to your favorite photos. Prepare to see colors pop and contrasts sharpen when you apply these effects.
Cyborg Photoshop Action
The Cyborg Photoshop actions offer a sci-fi effect for portrait photos. With two actions included, you can choose your preferred character design. The pack also includes Photoshop brushes and various color options.
Halloween Photoshop Action
Are you searching for spooky effects for your favorite Halloween photos? This is a purpose-built action pack for scary photos. Choose from various resolution options while editing. It features HDR effects that boost colors and contrast, and you can apply it with just a single click.
Sport Poster Effect Photoshop Action
Designed for sports posters, these Photoshop actions add a starry red backdrop. It works best for subjects that are in motion. The modern styling applies instantly, with geometric elements dropping into place. It’s a futuristic design for all your sports photos.
Art Work Photoshop Action
The Art Work Photoshop action pack helps the subjects of images stand out. With this pack, you’ll see backgrounds disappear, replaced with an abstract 3D concrete layout.
Posterize Effect Photoshop Action
With this Photoshop action pack, you can create elegant poster designs. With a single click, any portrait photo can be transformed into a stunning, posterized graphic.
Grunge Portrait Photoshop Action
The effect these Photoshop actions produce will turn any portrait into a decolorized, hand-drawn work of art. Brush and action files are included in the download pack. This action works best with portrait-style photos.
Old Newspaper Photoshop Action
Old newspapers have an unmistakable look and feel, from the typesetting to the slightly blurry photos. With this Photoshop action pack, you can bring this aesthetic to your photos. For maximum impact, wider photos are recommended.
Watercolor Photoshop Action
Watercolor artwork is a popular style, especially for landscape photos. With these actions, you can apply watercolor styling to any photo with a single click. Though designed for portraits, these actions will work on any image.
Plastic Wrapped Overlay Photoshop Action
The Plastic Wrapped Overlay Photoshop action pack is ideal for portrait subjects with a neutral yet stylish backdrop. This pack focuses on color contrasts. With a single click, you can apply a solid 3D background to the portrait photo of your choice.
Crack Stone Photoshop Action
These actions will add a cracked stone effect to your photos and graphics. They work with portraits and landscapes alike. It’s not a style you’ll likely use every day, but it’s handy to have in your editing toolbox. Multiple files are included, with documentation available. Single-click editing makes the process a breeze from start to finish.
Mirror Effect Photoshop Action
Mirror effects are powerful edits that work well with many types of photos. With these actions, you’ll see mirrored rings around your portrait subjects. It’s a sure way to help your photos get a second look from casual viewers.
Engraved Money Photoshop Action
Think of the portraits you’ve seen on printed money. Remember the iconic green stripes and portrait effects? You can add the effect to your photos with these custom actions. Use them to create fun designs for posters, blog posts, social media, and more.
Aquarelle Photoshop Action
Aquarelle is an artistic option for adding abstract watercolor effects to your images. With these color presets, you can easily tailor a photo’s palette to fit your style.
Sketch Painting Photoshop Action
Sketch paintings are a great way to be creative. Apply their aesthetic to the photos of your choice by using this Photoshop action pack. They work with just a single click and are well-suited to editors of all skill levels. You can create spectacular artwork in moments.
Pixel Sorting Photoshop Action
Pixel effects give the illusion of motion in still images. The Pixel Sorting Photoshop action pack allows you to add this effect to your top shots. This effect works best when applied to an action photo.
Fake Blueprint Photoshop Action
Have you ever wanted to create blueprint designs for your photo collection? It’s a terrific way to create modern, geometric designs. Now you can, with these Photoshop actions. Blueprint images are artsy and add a dose of contemporary cool to any wall or workspace.
Code Art Photoshop Actions
Code Art is an excellent choice for adding coding effects to your photographs. It works with portraits and full-body photos and includes ten color effects. Apply the action, and your image file will be layered and organized accordingly. This one’s a real time-saver.
Pencil Art Photoshop Actions
This action pack replicates the look of a pencil drawing in your photographs. Once the action generates the graphical elements, you can adjust them to suit your needs. It is non-destructive and includes six paper textures, eight color corrections, 28 brushes, and 14 patterns.
Mixed Art Photoshop Action
Another great option is the Mixed Art action pack. This Photoshop action can be applied with just one click, resulting in a look that replicates a watercolor painting.
Retro Art Photoshop Action
If you want to add a retro aesthetic to your photos, you’ll want to add the Retro Art Photoshop action kit to your toolbox. It adds an exciting artistic effect to your photos.
Chroma Art Photoshop Action
The Chroma Art Photoshop Action makes it easy to transform your photos into pieces of art that look like mixed-media artwork. It also comes with ten color presets that can be applied with a single click.
Drawing Art Animation Photoshop Action
The Drawing Art Animation Photoshop action adds a cool effect to your photographs. It is a time-saver that makes it easy to give your images the look of a hand-drawn piece of art.
Grunge Art Photoshop Action
This Grunge Art Photoshop action adds a dark and gritty look to your photographs. With a few clicks, you can give your images a real moody look with minimal effort. While this action works as expected, the results can be different each time to create a truly unique effect.
Piratum Map Art Photoshop Action
The Piratum Map Art Photoshop action offers a highly unique effect. When applied to your photos, it turns the image into a vintage-looking graphic, like a hand-drawn map. The result is an old-style graphic with tons of geographical details.
Sketch Art Photoshop Action
The Sketch Art Photoshop Action transforms your photo into a realistic painting while keeping the underlying sketch visible. It automatically creates all the necessary layers, which can be adjusted manually. The download includes ten brushes, five textures, and a quick start guide.
Spray Paint Photoshop Action
The Spray Paint Photoshop action is a set of 10 different effects you can apply to your photos immediately. Each effect creates the look of spray paint art. The result mimics edgy street art.
Pixel Art Photoshop Action
The Pixel Art Photoshop Action is another fantastic choice for your creative projects. It adds a retro, pixelated appearance to any image you apply it to. The result is a photo that looks like it came from the 1980s or 90s. Once used, you can adjust individual layers and gradient masks to refine the look further.
Blood Art Photoshop Action
The Blood Art Photoshop Action will turn any photo you choose into a moody and distinct artwork. Once applied, it adds a sort of cloudy blood effect. It comes with ten color effects.
Pixel Art Photoshop Actions
Another option is the Pixel Art Photoshop Action. This action turns your photo into a retro-looking image that looks like it came from a vintage video game. It comes with 21 actions, 32 tones, various color palettes, and more.
Ink Art Photoshop Action
The Ink Art Photoshop Action turns your photos into something that looks like it’s been hand-drawn. The result mimics Sumi-e-styled ink wash artwork. After you apply the effect, you can tweak various settings to customize the outcome.
Street Art Photoshop Action
You might also want to consider the Street Art Photoshop Action. As its name would suggest, this action transforms your images into street art. It works best with portraits and inanimate objects, and the result makes it appear as though a graffiti artist had drawn parts of the photo.
Modern Art Photoshop Action
Another option is this Modern Art Photoshop action pack. This action combines the look of real photography with watercolor and acrylic paint effects, creating a truly unique look. To use it, all you need to do is fill the subject of your photo with a color and then click play on the action.
Mix Art Photoshop Action
As its name suggests, the Mix Art Photoshop Action pack makes it easy to turn ordinary photos into pieces of mixed-media art. It comes with ten color presets, is easy to use, and allows for extra customization once applied.
Newspaper Art Photoshop Action
Give your images the appearance of newspaper print with the Newspaper Art Photoshop Action. It will turn your image into an abstract piece of art by adding letters and tidbits of newspaper graphics into geometric patterns that make up the subject of your photo.
Digital Art Photoshop Action
What an excellent effect this action creates! The Digital Art Photoshop Action turns your photographs into images that look as though they’ve been hand-painted. The result is highly realistic, with all the textures expected from an oil or acrylic painting. It works best on portraits and inanimate objects and can be customized to suit your needs.
Oil Paint Animation Photoshop Action
Instead of endlessly adjusting settings, use the Oil Paint Animation Photoshop action set to give your photographs the appearance of being manually painted.
Vintage Art Photoshop Action
This Photoshop action set combines splashes, brushes, and colors to create an artistic vintage look. It’s easy to apply and creates a professional look with minimal effort.
Street Art Photoshop Action
Here’s another action that brings the look of street art to your photographs. It includes 11 graffiti tags, five rugged wall styles, and ten color effects to create many different looks.
Concept Mix Art Photoshop Action
The Concept Mix Art Photoshop Action would be an excellent addition to your collection. It turns your photos into mixed media pieces with the look of watercolor splashes and pen marks. Use it on portraits, figures, and inanimate objects.
Fine Art Mobile Photoshop Action (and Lightroom Presets)
The Fine Art Mobile Photoshop Action comes with 11 different presets, making it easy to give your photos a modern look.
Watercolor Splash Art Photoshop Action
Last in our collection is the Watercolor Splash Art Photoshop Action. This set gives your photo a watercolor look with plenty of splatter effects. Use it on any image, and customize the final layers the action creates to match your style.
How to Install Photoshop Actions
- Download and unzip the action file.
- Launch Photoshop.
- Go to
Window > Actions. - Select
Load Actionsfrom the menu and go to the folder where you saved the unzipped action file to select it. - The Action will now be installed.
- To use the newly installed action, locate it in the
Actionpanel. - Click the triangle to the left of the action name to see the list of available actions.
- Click the action you want to play and press the play button at the bottom of the
Actionspanel.
Art Effect Photoshop Action FAQs
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What are art effects Photoshop actions?
Art effects actions are pre-set edits for Photoshop that add various artistic styles to your photos.
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Are these actions compatible with all versions of Photoshop?
Most actions are designed to work with a wide range of Photoshop versions, but checking their compatibility with your specific version is advisable.
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Can I apply these actions to different types of image files, such as RAW or JPEG?
These actions can be used with various image file types, including RAW and JPEG. However, the level of adjustment may vary based on the file format.
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Are these actions suitable for both digital and traditional art styles?
These art effect actions can improve photos in ways that suit both digital and traditional artistic styles, offering versatility to artists.
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Can I customize or combine multiple actions to create unique effects?
Certainly! You can adjust the opacity and layer blending modes and even combine multiple actions to achieve customized and distinctive artistic results.
Conclusion
These Photoshop actions offer a wide range of artistic possibilities, from turning a photo into a watercolor painting to giving it the appearance of an oil canvas.
These actions control elements like color, texture, and style but leave plenty of room for your own creative touches. Enjoy!
Related Topics
Pioneering the future of materials extraction
The next time you cook pasta, imagine that you are cooking spaghetti, rigatoni, and seven other varieties all together, and they need to be separated onto 10 different plates before serving. A colander can remove the water — but you still have a mound of unsorted noodles.
Now imagine that this had to be done for thousands of tons of pasta a day. That gives you an idea of the scale of the problem facing Brendan Smith PhD ’18, co-founder and CEO of SiTration, a startup formed out of MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) in 2020.
SiTration, which raised $11.8 million in seed capital led by venture capital firm 2150 earlier this month, is revolutionizing the extraction and refining of copper, cobalt, nickel, lithium, precious metals, and other materials critical to manufacturing clean-energy technologies such as electric motors, wind turbines, and batteries. Its initial target applications are recovering the materials from complex mining feed streams, spent lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles, and various metals refining processes.
The company’s breakthrough lies in a new silicon membrane technology that can be adjusted to efficiently recover disparate materials, providing a more sustainable and economically viable alternative to conventional, chemically intensive processes. Think of a colander with adjustable pores to strain different types of pasta. SiTration’s technology has garnered interest from industry players, including mining giant Rio Tinto.
Some observers may question whether targeting such different industries could cause the company to lose focus. “But when you dig into these markets, you discover there is actually a significant overlap in how all of these materials are recovered, making it possible for a single solution to have impact across verticals,” Smith says.
Powering up materials recovery
Conventional methods of extracting critical materials in mining, refining, and recycling lithium-ion batteries involve heavy use of chemicals and heat, which harm the environment. Typically, raw ore from mines or spent batteries are ground into fine particles before being dissolved in acid or incinerated in a furnace. Afterward, they undergo intensive chemical processing to separate and purify the valuable materials.
“It requires as much as 10 tons of chemical input to produce one ton of critical material recovered from the mining or battery recycling feedstock,” says Smith. Operators can then sell the recaptured materials back into the supply chain, but suffer from wide swings in profitability due to uncertain market prices. Lithium prices have been the most volatile, having surged more than 400 percent before tumbling back to near-original levels in the past two years. Despite their poor economics and negative environmental impact, these processes remain the state of the art today.
By contrast, SiTration is electrifying the critical-materials recovery process, improving efficiency, producing less chemical waste, and reducing the use of chemicals and heat. What’s more, the company’s processing technology is built to be highly adaptable, so it can handle all kinds of materials.
The core technology is based on work done at MIT to develop a novel type of membrane made from silicon, which is durable enough to withstand harsh chemicals and high temperatures while conducting electricity. It’s also highly tunable, meaning it can be modified or adjusted to suit different conditions or target specific materials.
SiTration’s technology also incorporates electro-extraction, a technique that uses electrochemistry to further isolate and extract specific target materials. This powerful combination of methods in a single system makes it more efficient and effective at isolating and recovering valuable materials, Smith says. So depending on what needs to be separated or extracted, the filtration and electro-extraction processes are adjusted accordingly.
“We can produce membranes with pore sizes from the molecular scale up to the size of a human hair in diameter, and everything in between. Combined with the ability to electrify the membrane and separate based on a material’s electrochemical properties, this tunability allows us to target a vast array of different operations and separation applications across industrial fields,” says Smith.
Efficient access to materials like lithium, cobalt, and copper — and precious metals like platinum, gold, silver, palladium, and rare-earth elements — is key to unlocking innovation in business and sustainability as the world moves toward electrification and away from fossil fuels.
“This is an era when new materials are critical,” says Professor Jeffrey Grossman, co-founder and chief scientist of SiTration and the Morton and Claire Goulder and Family Professor in Environmental Systems at DMSE. “For so many technologies, they’re both the bottleneck and the opportunity, offering tremendous potential for non-incremental advances. And the role they’re having in commercialization and in entrepreneurship cannot be overstated.”
SiTration’s commercial frontier
Smith became interested in separation technology in 2013 as a PhD student in Grossman’s DMSE research group, which has focused on the design of new membrane materials for a range of applications. The two shared a curiosity about separation of critical materials and a hunger to advance the technology. After years of study under Grossman’s mentorship, and with support from several MIT incubators and foundations including the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, the Kavanaugh Fellowship, MIT Sandbox, and Venture Mentoring Service, Smith was ready to officially form SiTration in 2020. Grossman has a seat on the board and plays an active role as a strategic and technical advisor.
Grossman is involved in several MIT spinoffs and embraces the different imperatives of research versus commercialization. “At SiTration, we’re driving this technology to work at scale. There’s something super exciting about that goal,” he says. “The challenges that come with scaling are very different than the challenges that come in a university lab.” At the same time, although not every research breakthrough becomes a commercial product, open-ended, curiosity-driven knowledge pursuit holds its own crucial value, he adds.
It has been rewarding for Grossman to see his technically gifted student and colleague develop a host of other skills the role of CEO demands. Getting out to the market and talking about the technology with potential partners, putting together a dynamic team, discovering the challenges facing industry, drumming up support, early on — those became the most pressing activities on Smith’s agenda.
“What’s most fun to me about being a CEO of an early-stage startup is that there are 100 different factors, most people-oriented, that you have to navigate every day. Each stakeholder has different motivations and objectives. And you basically try to fit that all together, to create value for our partners and customers, the company, and for society,” says Smith. “You start with just an idea, and you have to keep leveraging that to form a more and more tangible product, to multiply and progress commercial relationships, and do it all at an ever-expanding scale.”
MIT DNA runs deep in the nine-person company, with DMSE grad and former Grossman student Jatin Patil as director of product; Ahmed Helal, from MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, as vice president of research and development; Daniel Bregante, from the Department of Chemistry, as VP of technology; and Sarah Melvin, from the departments of Physics and Political Science, as VP of strategy and operations. Melvin is the first hire devoted to business development. Smith plans to continue expanding the team following the closing of the company’s seed round.
Strategic alliances
Being a good communicator was important when it came to securing funding, Smith says. SiTration received $2.35 million in pre-seed funding in 2022 led by Azolla Ventures, which reserves its $239 million in investment capital for startups that would not otherwise easily obtain funding. “We invest only in solution areas that can achieve gigaton-scale climate impact by 2050,” says Matthew Nordan, a general partner at Azolla and now SiTration board member. The MIT-affiliated E14 Fund also contributed to the pre-seed round; Azolla and E14 both participated in the recent seed funding round.
“Brendan demonstrated an extraordinary ability to go from being a thoughtful scientist to a business leader and thinker who has punched way above his weight in engaging with customers and recruiting a well-balanced team and navigating tricky markets,” says Nordan.
One of SiTration’s first partnerships is with Rio Tinto, one of the largest mining companies in the world. As SiTration evaluated various uses cases in its early days, identifying critical materials as its target market, Rio Tinto was looking for partners to recover valuable metals such as cobalt and copper from the wastewater generated at mines. These metals were typically trapped in the water, creating harmful waste and resulting in lost revenue.
“We thought this was a great innovation challenge and posted it on our website to scout for companies to partner with who can help us solve this water challenge,” said Nick Gurieff, principal advisor for mine closure, in an interview with MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program in 2023.
At SiTration, mining was not yet a market focus, but Smith couldn’t help noticing that Rio Tinto’s needs were in alignment with what his young company offered. SiTration submitted its proposal in August 2022.
Gurieff said SiTration’s tunable membrane set it apart. The companies formed a business partnership in June 2023, with SiTration adjusting its membrane to handle mine wastewater and incorporating Rio Tinto feedback to refine the technology. After running tests with water from mine sites, SiTration will begin building a small-scale critical-materials recovery unit, followed by larger-scale systems processing up to 100 cubic meters of water an hour.
SiTration’s focused technology development with Rio Tinto puts it in a good position for future market growth, Smith says. “Every ounce of effort and resource we put into developing our product is geared towards creating real-world value. Having an industry-leading partner constantly validating our progress is a tremendous advantage.”
It’s a long time from the days when Smith began tinkering with tiny holes in silicon in Grossman’s DMSE lab. Now, they work together as business partners who are scaling up technology to meet a global need. Their joint passion for applying materials innovation to tough problems has served them well. “Materials science and engineering is an engine for a lot of the innovation that is happening today,” Grossman says. “When you look at all of the challenges we face to make the transition to a more sustainable planet, you realize how many of these are materials challenges.”
The rules of the game
At the core of Raymond Wang’s work lies a seemingly simple question: Can’t we just get along?
Wang, a fifth-year political science graduate student, is a native of Hong Kong who witnessed firsthand the shakeup and conflict engendered by China’s takeover of the former British colony. “That type of experience makes you wonder why things are so complicated,” he says. “Why is it so hard to live with your neighbors?”
Today, Wang is focused on ways of managing a rapidly intensifying U.S.-China competition, and more broadly, on identifying how China — and other emerging global powers — bend, break, or creatively accommodate international rules in trade, finance, maritime, and arms control matters to achieve their ends.
The current game for global dominance between the United States and China continually threatens to erupt into dangerous confrontation. Wang’s research aims to construct a more nuanced take on China’s behaviors in this game.
“U.S. policy towards China should be informed by a better understanding of China’s behaviors if we are to avoid the worst-case scenario,” Wang believes.
“Selective and smart”
One of Wang’s major research thrusts is the ongoing trade war between the two nations. “The U.S. views China as rewriting the rules, creating an alternative world order — and accuses China of violating World Trade Organization (WTO) rules,” says Wang. “But in fact, China has been very selective and smart about responding to these rules.”
One critical, and controversial, WTO matter involves determining whether state-owned enterprises are, in the arcane vocabulary of the group, “public bodies,” which are subject to sometimes punitive WTO rules. The United States asserts that if a government owns 51 percent of a company, it is a public body. This means that many essential Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) — manufacturers of electric vehicles, steel, or chemicals, for example — would fall under WTO provisions, and potentially face punitive discipline.
But China isn’t the only nation with SOEs. Many European countries, including stalwart U.S. partners France and Norway, subsidize companies that qualify as public bodies according to the U.S. definition. They, too, could be subject to tough WTO regulations.
“This could harm a swathe of the E.U. economy,” says Wang. “So China intelligently made the case to the international community that the U.S. position is extreme, and has pushed for a more favorable interpretation through litigation at the WTO.”
For Wang, this example highlights a key insight of his research: “Rising powers such as China exhibit cautious opportunism,” he says. “China will try to work with the existing rules as much as possible, including bending them in creative ways.”
But when it comes down to it, Wang argues, China would rather avoid the costs of building something completely new.
“If you can repurpose an old tool, why would you buy a new one?” he asks. “The vast majority of actions China is taking involves reshaping the existing order, not introducing new rules or blowing up institutions and building new ones.”
Interviewing key players
To bolster his theory of “cautious opportunism,” Wang’s doctoral project sets out a suite of rule-shaping strategies adopted by rising powers in international organizations. His analysis is driven by case studies of disputes recently concluded, or ongoing, in the WTO, the World Bank, and other bodies responsible for defining and policing rules that govern all manner of international relations and commerce.
Gathering evidence for his argument, Wang has been interviewing people critical to the disputes on all sides.
“My approach is to figure out who was in the room when certain decisions were made and talk to every single person there,” he says. “For the WTO and World Bank, I’ve interviewed close to 50 relevant personnel, including front-line lawyers, senior leadership, and former government officials.” These interviews took place in Geneva, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington.
But writing about disputes that involve China poses a unique set of problems. “It’s difficult to talk to actively serving Chinese officials, and in general, nobody wants to go on the record because all the content is sensitive.”
As Wang moves on to cases in maritime governance, he will be reaching out to the key players involved in managing sensitive conflicts in the South China Sea, an Indo-Pacific region dotted with shoals and offering desirable fisheries as well as oil and gas resources.
Even here, Wang suggests, China may find reason to be cautious rather than opportunistic, preferring to carve out exemptions for itself or shift interpretations, rather than overturning the existing rules wholesale.
Indeed, Wang believes China and other rising powers introduce new rules only when conditions open up a window of opportunity: “It may be worth doing so when using traditional tools doesn’t get you what you want, if your competitors are unable or unwilling to counter mobilize against you, and you see that the costs of establishing these new rules are worth it,” he says.
Beyond Wang’s dissertation, he has also been part of a research team led by M. Taylor Fravel, Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science, that has published papers on China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
From friends to enemies
Wang left Hong Kong and its political ferment behind at age 15, but the challenge of dealing with a powerful neighbor and the potential crisis it represented stayed with him. In Italy, he attended a United World College — part of a network of schools bringing together young people from different nations and cultures for the purpose of training leaders and peacemakers.
“It’s a utopian idea, where you force teenagers from all around the world to live and study together and get along for two years,” says Wang. “There were people from countries in the Balkans that were actively at war with each other, who grew up with the memory of air raid sirens and family members who fought each other, but these kids would just hang out together.”
Coexistence was possible on the individual level, Wang realized, but he wondered, “What systemic thing happens that makes people do messed-up stuff to each other when they are in a group?”
With this question in mind, he went to the University of St. Andrews for his undergraduate and master’s degrees in international relations and modern history. As China continued its economic and military march onto the world stage, and Iran generated international tensions over its nuclear ambitions, Wang became interested in nuclear disarmament. He drilled down into the subject at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, where he earned a second master’s degree in nonproliferation and terrorism studies.
Leaning into a career revolving around policy, he applied to MIT’s security studies doctoral program, hoping to focus on the impact of emerging technologies on strategic nuclear stability. But events in the world led him to pivot. “When I started in the fall of 2019, the U.S.-China relationship was going off the rails with the trade war,” he says. “It was clear that managing the relationship would be one of the biggest foreign policy challenges for the foreseeable future, and I wanted to do research that would help ensure that the relationship wouldn’t tip into a nuclear war.”
Cooling tensions
Wang has no illusions about the difficulty of containing tensions between a superpower eager to assert its role in the world order, and one determined to hold onto its primacy. His goal is to make the competition more transparent, and if possible, less overtly threatening. He is preparing a paper, “Guns and Butter: Measuring Spillover and Implications for Technological Competition,” that outlines the different paths taken by the United States and China in developing defense-related technology that also benefits the civilian economy.
As he wades into the final phase of his thesis and contemplates his next steps, Wang hopes that his research insights might inform policymakers, especially in the United States, in their approach to China. While there is a fiercely competitive relationship, “there is still room for diplomacy,” he believes. “If you accept my theory that a rising power will try and use, or even abuse, existing rules as much as possible, then you need non-military — State Department — boots on the ground to monitor what is going on at all the international institutions,” he says. The more information and understanding the United States has of China’s behavior, the more likely it will be able “to cool down some of the tensions,” says Wang. “We need to develop a strategic empathy.”
Protecting your brand in the age of AI – CyberTalk
Mark Dargin is an experienced security and network architect/leader. He is a Senior Strategic Security Advisor, advising Fortune 500 organizations for Optiv, the largest pure-play security risk advisory organization in North America. He is also an Information Security & Assurance instructor at Schoolcraft College in Michigan. Mark holds an MS degree in Business Information Technology from Walsh College and has had dozens of articles published in the computing press. He holds various active certifications, including the CRISC, CISSP, CCSP, PMP, GIAC GMON, GIAC, GNFA, Certified Blockchain Expert, and many other vendor related certifications.
In this timely and relevant interview, Senior Strategic Security Advisor for Optiv, Mark Dargin, shares insights into why organizations must elevate brand protection strategies, how to leverage AI for brand protection and how to protect a brand from AI-based threats. It’s all here!
1. For our audience members who are unfamiliar, perhaps share a bit about why this topic is of increasing relevance, please?
The internet is now the primary platform used for commerce. This makes it much easier for brand impersonators, and counterfeiters to achieve their goals. As a result, security and brand protection are essential. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, counterfeiting of products costs the global economy over 500 billion each year.
Use of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and deepfake videos — which are used to create brand impersonations — has increased significantly. This AI software can imitate exact designs and brand styles. Deepfake videos are also occasionally used to imitate a brand’s spokesperson and can lead to fraudulent endorsements.
Large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, can also be used to automate phishing attacks that spoof well-known brands. I expect for phishing attacks that spoof brand names to increase significantly in sophistication and quantity over the next several years. It is essential to stay ahead of technological advancements for brand protection purposes.
2. How can artificial intelligence elevate brand protection/product security? What specific challenges does AI address that other technologies struggle with?
Performing manual investigations for brand protection can require a lot of time and resources to manage effectively. It can significantly increase the cost for an organization.
AI is revolutionizing brand protection by analyzing vast quantities of data, and identifying threats like online scams and counterfeit products. This allows brands to shift from reacting to threats to proactively safeguarding their reputation.
AI can increase the speed of identifying brand spoofing attacks and counterfeiting. Also, it can dramatically shorten the time from detection to enforcement by intelligently automating the review process and automatically offering a law enforcement recommendation.
For example, if a business can identify an online counterfeiter one month after the counterfeiter started selling counterfeit goods vs. six months later, then that can have a significant, positive impact on an organization’s revenue.
3. In your experience, what are the most common misconceptions or concerns that clients express regarding the integration of AI into brand protection strategies? How do you address these concerns?
If used correctly, AI can be very beneficial for organizations in running brand protection programs. AI technologies can help to track IP assets and identify infringers or copyright issues. It is important to note that AI is an excellent complement to, but cannot fully replace, human advisors.
There are concerns amongst security and brand protection leaders that AI will cause their investigative teams to rely solely on AI solutions vs. using human intuition. While tools are important, humans must also spend an adequate amount of time outside of the tools to identify bad actors, because AI tools are not going to catch everything. Also, staff must take the time to ensure that the information sent to the tool is correct and within the scope of what is required. The same goes for the configuration of settings. At a minimum, a quarterly review should be completed for any tools or solutions that are deployed.
Leaders must ensure that employees do not solely rely on AI-based tools and continue to use human intuition when analyzing data or identifying suspicious patterns or behaviors. Consistent reminders and training of employees can help aid in this ongoing process.
Training in identifying and reporting malicious use of the brand name and counterfeiting should be included for all employees. It is not just the security team that is responsible for protecting the brand; all employees should be part of this ongoing plan.
4. Can AI-based brand protection account for regional, local or otherwise business-specific nuances related to brand protection and product security? Ex. What if an organization offers slightly different products in different consumer markets?
Yes, AI brand protection solutions can account for these nuances. Many organizations in the same industry are working together to develop AI-based solutions to better protect their products. For example, Swift has announced two AI-based experiments, in collaboration with various member banks, to explore how AI could assist in combating cross-border payments fraud and save the industry billions in fraud-related costs.
We will continue to see organizations collaborate to develop industry-specific AI strategies for brand protection based on the different products and services offered. This is beneficial because attackers will, at times, target specific industries with similar tactics. Organizations need to account for this. Collaboration will help with protection measures, even in simply deciding on which protection measures to invest in most heavily.
5. Reflecting on your interactions with clients who are exploring AI solutions for brand protection, what are the key factors that influence their decision-making process? (ex. Budget, organizational culture, perceived ROI).
From my experience, the key factor that influences decision-making is the perceived return on investments (ROI). Once the benefits and ROI are explained to leaders, then it is less difficult to obtain a budget for investing in an AI brand protection solution. Many organizations are concerned about their brand name being used inappropriately on the dark web and this can hurt an organization’s reputation. Also, I have found that AI security solutions that can help aid an organization in achieving compliance with PCI, GDPR, HITRUST, etc., are more likely to receive approval and support from the board.
Building a culture of trust should not begin when change is being implemented; but rather in a much earlier phase of planning or deciding on which changes need to be made. If an organization has a culture that is not innovative, or leaders who do not train employees properly on using AI security tools or who are not transparent about the risks of it, then any investment in AI will face increased challenges.
AI’s high level of refinement means it can reduce the time and increase the scope of responsibility for individuals and teams performing investigations, enabling them to focus on other meaningful tasks. Investigations that were once mundane become more interesting due to the increased number of unique findings that AI is able to provide.
Due to the time saved by using AI in identifying attacks, investigators will have more time to pursue legal implications; ensuring that threat actors or brand impersonators are given legal warnings or charged with a crime. This can potentially discourage the recurrence of an attack from the specific source that receives the warning.
6. Could you share insights from your experience integrating AI technologies designed for brand protection into comprehensive cyber security frameworks? Lessons learned or recommendations for CISOs?
Security and brand protection leaders are seeing criminals use artificial intelligence to attack or impersonate brand names and they can stay ahead of those threats by operationalizing the NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF), and by mapping, measuring, and managing AI security risks. The fight moving forward in the future is AI vs AI. It is just as important to document and manage the risks of implementing AI as is to document the risk of attackers using AI to attack your brand name or products.
Leaders need to start preparing their workforce to see AI tools as an augmentation rather than substitution. Whether people realize it or not, AI is already a part of our daily lives, from social media, to smartphones, to spell check, to Google searches.
At this time, a task that was a challenge before can be done a lot faster and more efficiently with the help of AI. I am seeing more leaders who are motivated to educating security teams on the potential uses of AI for protecting the brand and in preventing brand-based spoofing attacks. I see this in the increased investments in AI-capable security solutions that they are making.
7. Would you like to speak to Optiv’s partnership with Check Point in relation to using AI-based technologies for brand protection/product security? The value there?
Attackers target brands from reputable companies because they are confident that these companies have a solid reputation for trustworthiness. Cyber criminals also know that it is difficult for companies, even large companies, to stop such brand impersonations by themselves, if they do not have appropriate tools to aid them.
Optiv and Check Point have had a strong partnership over many years. Check Point has a comprehensive set of AI solutions that I had the luxury of testing at the CPX event this year. Check Point offers a Zero-Phishing AI engine that can block potential brand spoofing attempts, which impersonate local and global brands across multiple languages and countries. It uses machine learning, natural language processing, and image processing to detect brand spoofing attempts. This provides security administrators with more time to focus on other security-related tasks or can alert them when something suspicious occurs within the environment.
The value in using AI solutions from vendors such as Check Point is the reduction in time spent detecting attacks and preventing attacks. In effect, this can empower organizations to focus on the business of increasing sales.
8. Can you share examples of KPIs/metrics that executives should track to measure the effectiveness of AI-powered brand protection initiatives and demonstrate ROI to stakeholders?
Generative AI projects concerning brand protection should be adaptable to specific threats that organizations may have within their environments at specific times. KPIs related to adaptability and customization might include the ease of fine-tuning models, or the adaptability of protection safeguards based on a specific input. The more customizable the generative AI project is, the better it can align with your specific protection needs, based on the assessed threats.
Organizations need to measure KPIs for the AI brand protection solutions that they have deployed. They should track how many attacks are prevented, how many are detected, and how many are successful. These reports should be reviewed on a monthly basis, at the least, and trends should be identified. For example, if successful attacks are increasing over a span of three months, that would be a concern. Or if you see the number of attacks attempted decreasing, that could also be something to look into. In such cases, consider investigating, as to ensure that your tools are still working correctly and not missing other attempted attacks.
9. In looking ahead, what emerging AI-driven technologies or advancements do you anticipate will reshape the landscape of brand protection and product security in the near future? How should organizations prepare? What recommendations are you giving to your clients?
Attackers will be increasing their use of AI to generate large-scale attacks. Organizations need to be prepared for these attacks by having the right policies, procedures, and tools in place to prevent or reduce the impact. Organizations should continually analyze the risk they face from AI brand impersonation attacks using NIST or other risk-based frameworks.
Security and brand leaders should perform a risk assessment before recommending specific tools or solutions to business units, because this will ensure you have the support needed for a successful deployment. It also increases the chance for approval of any unexpected expenses related to it.
I expect that there will be an increase in the collaboration between brands and AI-capable eCommerce platforms to jointly combat unauthorized selling and sharing of data and insights, leading to more effective enforcement. When it comes to brand protection, this will set the stage for more proactive and preventative approaches in the future, and I encourage more businesses to collaborate on these joint projects.
Blockchain technologies can complement AI in protecting brands, with their ability to provide security and transparent authentication. I expect that blockchain will be utilized more in the future in helping brands and consumers verify the legitimacy of a product.
10. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our executive-level audience?
As the issue of brand protection gains prominence, I expect that there will be regulatory changes and the establishment of global standards aimed at protecting brands and consumers from unauthorized reselling activities. Organizations need to stay on top of these changes, especially as the number of brand attacks and impersonations is expected to increase in the future. AI and the data behind it are going to continue to be important factors in protecting brand names and protecting businesses from brand-based spoofing attacks.
It is essential to embrace innovation and collaboration in brand protection and to ensure that authenticity and integrity prevail, given the various threats that organizations face. Let’s be clear that one solution will not solve all problems related to brand protection. Rather, the use of various technologies, along with human intuition, strong leadership, solid processes, and collaboratively created procedures are the keys to increased protection.
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