Gen AI: Corporates’ Shift from Big Brands to Startup Solutions

Generative AI and chatbots are not something the world has never seen before 2022. It’s not even about Siri or Alexa, but the good old ELIZA, one of the first examples of Natural Language Processing, who would be a 57-year-old lady now. However, only half a…

Projects investigating Swahili, global media win SHASS Humanities Awards

Projects investigating Swahili, global media win SHASS Humanities Awards

Two projects — the Global Mediations Lab led by Paul Roquet and the MIT Swahili Studies Initiative led by Per Urlaub — have won Humanities Awards from the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.

The pilot program, launched in fall 2023, aims to support humanities-focused, collaborative projects that can have a broad impact within SHASS or MIT, or have a substantial impact on undergraduate education. Each winning project receives up to $100,000 in funding.

Paul Roquet: Investigating media and information impacts 

Paul Roquet is the project lead for the Global Mediations Lab, which will enable a globe-spanning study of media texts, industries, and infrastructure.

These studies, Roquet asserts, will reach beyond what he describes as “the usual focus on anglophone North America and Europe” to “map the global media landscape in its moments of contestation and transformation.” 

“The big, difficult question here is how to enable a more fully global understanding of media technologies — how these tools are used for good and ill, in ways both predictable and unforeseen,” he says. This work, he believes, can provide practitioners with context regarding the history and values feeding the exclusion of other ideas and perspectives. “We seek to understand how the spread of media is itself mediated by culture, place, politics, and history,” Roquet states.

Roquet will work alongside co-principal investigator Paloma Duong, associate professor of Latin American studies in MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing (CMS/W), and principal investigator Ian Condry, professor of Japanese culture and media studies, CMS/W, and MIT Anthropology. They anticipate an integrated, diverse, and inclusive slate of events, conferences, and other efforts. 

“I think it would also be great to experiment with other formats that take seriously our own media milieu, or that allow for more participatory collaborations and more process-oriented (versus outcome-oriented) forms of research and scholarship,” Duong says.

The team wants to develop, deliver, and maintain an expansive suite of operations that invites participation from across MIT and the world. Faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program participants can benefit.

Roquet believes the Global Mediations Lab can serve as a hub for mapping how media practices transform as they spread around the world, and the importance of this understanding for work at MIT and among the broader community. “I want the Global Mediations Lab to be a venue for experimenting with how to bring global media insights more directly to bear on the understanding of media and technology,” Roquet says.

Per Urlaub: Reexamining language studies and curricula

Per (pronounced “pear”) Urlaub, project lead of the MIT Swahili Studies Initiative, envisions a robust program scheduled during MIT’s annual Independent Activities Period. Urlaub and his colleagues want to offer students, colleagues, and staff the opportunity to study Swahili and associated cultures over the next five years throughout the academic year through co-curricular events.

“There is an undeniable gap in MIT’s language curriculum — and this gap negatively impacts the ability of MIT undergraduate students to consider the perspectives of the African continent in their important work,” says Urlaub, who heads MIT Global Languages.

Urlaub has enlisted the help of several colleagues from across multiple investigative areas at MIT to help plan and launch the Swahili studies program. They include:

Urlaub selected Swahili for further study because “it’s one of the largest African languages, and arguably the language that has currently the most significant momentum in terms of growth and impact.” 

Swahili, Urlaub notes, has been spoken primarily in Tanzania, Kenya, and Mozambique, but the total number of Swahili speakers, be they native or second-language speakers, is estimated to be around 200 million. 

“In recent decades, the language has developed into a lingua franca across Eastern Africa, competing successfully for this status with English,” Urlaub continues.

Swahili’s growing influence is evident in its ubiquity across a substantial swath of the African continent, widely used in the African Great Lakes region, East and Southern Africa, some parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, the southern tip of Somalia, and Zambia.

Urlaub highlights the value of language education at MIT while also acknowledging what he describes as “the enduring impact of colonialism on language and cultural studies.”

“We believe we owe the MIT community opportunities to broaden their intellectual horizons toward the African continent,” Urlaub says.

Urlaub wants students to appreciate the complex and fascinating linguistic landscape of African countries, including the implications of the dominance of Swahili language for other regional languages. He further seeks expanded opportunities for student and faculty access to African nations’ rich historical and cultural tapestries. 

“MIT students’ opportunities to engage with Africa are reduced to either mono-linguistic exchanges in English, or through other languages in our current curriculum that were introduced to the continent through military conquest and colonial exploitation, like French, Portuguese, and Arabic,” Urlaub continues. 

Ultimately, Urlaub values the investigation of language as a key element in cross-disciplinary understanding for future leaders. 

“MIT students gravitate to us because many recognize the value of linguistic and intercultural skills as tools that will empower them to address some of the world’s most urgent challenges by collaborating with partners around the world,” Urlaub asserts.

Experts from 30 nations will contribute to global AI safety report

Leading experts from 30 nations across the globe will advise on a landmark report assessing the capabilities and risks of AI systems.  The International Scientific Report on Advanced AI Safety aims to bring together the best scientific research on AI safety to inform policymakers and future…

DiOnetta Jones Crayton: Change-maker at MIT

DiOnetta Jones Crayton: Change-maker at MIT

Associate Dean and Office of Minority Education (OME) Director DiOnetta Jones Crayton has announced that she will step down from her role on Feb. 2. She has led the office for 14 years, advancing OME’s efforts to provide a robust portfolio of programs, services, and resources for undergraduate students of color.

“It has been my honor to serve as director of the OME for the past 14 years,” Crayton wrote in a letter to the staff of the Office of the Vice Chancellor announcing her departure. “As a team, we have accomplished great things together … It has been so rewarding and such a blessing to contribute to so many lives as well as different committees, programs, events, and services over the years.”

Founded in 1975, OME aims to foster academic excellence, build strong communities, and cultivate students’ professional mindsets to position them to become leaders in all career fields, as well as in civic life.

“DiOnetta has been a long-standing advisor, mentor, and change-maker at the Institute,” says Ian A. Waitz, vice chancellor for undergraduate and graduate education. “She has served on numerous Institute committees and been an essential thought partner in navigating some of the most challenging issues facing our students. I have personally valued her commitment to excellence, her strategic vision and leadership, and her ability to communicate her passion to others.”

Indeed, Crayton has been a change-maker since she arrived at MIT in August 2009, after holding leadership roles at Cornell University, the National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. Within her first academic year alone, OME adopted a new mission statement; launched comprehensive, data-driven assessments of several existing programs; and devised a new staffing model to ensure the office would reach “optimal success,” as she said at the time.

She also piloted several new programs that year that have become mainstays in OME, including Master Your Future, a professional development workshop series. And she restructured OME’s industry partnership program, the Industrial Advisory Council for Minority Education (IACME), resulting in a threefold increase in member companies, as well as adding nonprofits, government labs, and alumni affinity groups to the mix.

Beyond making campus-based improvements, DiOnetta also “led outward,” co-chairing a major conference on underrepresented minority student success in higher education, held at MIT in April 2010. The conference brought together national experts, university diversity officers, and academic administrators from Ivy-Plus schools and other leading institutions to discuss the challenges at their institutions. The lessons gleaned from the gathering informed her strategic vision for her office, as well as her involvement in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts more broadly at MIT.

Cordelia Price ’78, SM ’82, who has worked with Crayton since 2009, says, “I have seen DiOnetta’s excellent leadership, organizational, communication, initiative, effective meeting, and listening skills in action.” Price serves as the Black Alumni of MIT (BAMIT) representative to IACME and as chair of operations for the BAMIT Community Advancement Program, which funds student projects that benefit underserved communities of color.

Under Crayton’s leadership, Price adds, “[OME] programs have helped many students with their academic success, their opportunities for internships, their preparation for future employment or graduate school, and provided opportunities to serve the community. She also established or strengthened mentor programs, including mentors from IACME companies as well as MIT alumni.”

During Crayton’s tenure, OME has embraced a spirit of innovation — a quality well-suited for MIT’s ethos — to best meet students’ needs. For example, long before the pandemic forced the Institute to pivot to remote instruction and programs in 2020, she and her staff were already implementing a plan to adapt one of OME’s signature programs, Interphase EDGE (IP), into an online format. Applications for IP, a two-year scholar enrichment program that includes a seven-week summer session on campus, had been increasing dramatically. In an effort to serve more students, in 2018 Crayton’s team began working with MITx on an online platform to accommodate a new, remote cohort called IPx. By 2020, with that infrastructure in place, OME was able to offer the remote program to both cohorts, despite the closure of campus that summer.

So much of OME’s success comes down to Crayton’s emphasis on listening, says Myles Noel, a senior majoring in chemistry. He’s gotten to know her well as an IP participant and through interacting with her on various committees and student organizations. “Her leadership style is a lot of listening; she’s willing to listen to the issues that students are experiencing and from that, she is able to offer support and advice,” he says.

Listening to students has also informed the development of new programs. Two recent examples are The Standard, for men of color, and the CRWN (pronounced “crown”), for women of color. Both programs address a need that undergraduate students articulated — a desire to create a close-knit affinity group — while also supporting their academic and professional success.

“DiOnetta’s extraordinary leadership and unwavering emotional investment has helped countless students identify, open, and walk through doors of opportunity,” says Chancellor Melissa Nobles. “Her deep belief in our students has inspired them to believe in themselves and work towards their dreams — especially when they were unsure of themselves. She has made OME, MIT, and our world a better place over these past 14 years.”

Indeed, students speak fondly of Crayton’s ability to inspire them to believe in themselves. Noel says she has been an invaluable mentor and advisor. “She has been a pillar of support for me and a lot of other students in the community.” Kerrie Greene, an MD/PhD student who has known Crayton for almost 10 years, adds, “Dean Crayton is such a light, her warmth surrounds everything and everyone she supports. Under her guidance and leadership, I have seen countless numbers of my peers, including myself, blossom during their time at MIT and beyond.”

“Students will feel her loss, but the impact that she’s had is going to be lasting, and I think that’s something to be happy for,” says Noel.

WWE 2K24 Preview – A Good Hand – Game Informer

WWE 2K has steadily climbed the ladder of quality over the past two entries. A strong comeback in 2K22 saw initiative but meaningful improvements in 2K23, and the series is arguably the strongest it’s ever been. But a new year means another opportunity to retain the title for best wrestling sim or drop it to someone else. On the morning of the Royal Rumble last Saturday, I got to sample WWE 2K24’s notable new additions at a special preview event. That includes the new Showcase mode documenting 40 years of WrestleMania, the new Ambulance Match type, and additional features added to the moment-to-moment action. 

WWE 2K24 Preview – A Good Hand – Game Informer

Showcase

The documentary-style Showcase mode has been christened “2K Showcase…of the Immortals.” With Wrestlemania 40 close at hand, Showcase serves as a celebration of this milestone by letting players relive some of the most memorable matches from the event’s decades-long history. 

The preview build offered three matches: Ultimate Warrior vs Rick Rude (Wrestlemania V), Rhea Ripley vs Charlotte Flair (Wrestlemania XXXIX), and Cody Rhodes vs Roman Reigns (Wrestlemania XXXIX). There are plenty more, of course, that I can’t speak about, but 2K promises to reveal the full list of Showcase matches “soon.”

I begin with the main event of last year’s ‘Mania, Cody v Roman. After watching the obligatory well-produced vignette welcoming players to Showcase (narrated by commentator Corey Graves), I take control of Reigns – backed by Paul Heyman and Solo Sikoa – and begin my task of reenacting the still-painful memory of spoiling Cody’s championship dreams. 

As with previous Showcase modes, you’re given a series of objectives to complete, which consists of executing moves used in the real match. However, one big and much-needed improvement is that objectives now display the necessary button inputs to execute the required move. That means no more constant pausing to visit the menu’s move list to remember how to perform a standing corner attack or trying to decipher what positioning hitting a teardrop suplex requires. Now that I always knew how to do what was asked of me, I could better focus on actually pulling it off – and the enemy AI doesn’t make it easy. 

At one point, I initiate the new Trading Blows mini-game. Wrestling fans probably know this better as the back-and-forth “boo/yay” punches. Striking involves holding down the attack button to fill a meter and releasing it within a highlighted area. Sometimes, a thinner gold area appears, and stopping the meter inside this trickier segment results in a more powerful strike. If you’ve played any wrestling mini-game, you know what to expect. Losing a Trading Blows battle leaves you in a stunned state, rendering you vulnerable to the opponent’s next move. It’s a fun way to game-ify one of wrestling’s biggest in-ring tropes. 

From what I played, Showcase is the experience you expect. The mid-match transitions to real footage are still cool, and the video packages offer a fun reflection or entertaining history lesson for wrestling diehards and newcomers, respectively. I’m excited to see what the rest of the match line-up looks like, and Showcase will hopefully be a great appetizer on the real-life road to Wrestlemania. 

Ambulance Match

Of the new match types available in 2K24, such as the Casket match, only the Ambulance match was available in my demo. Like the real version, the goal is to beat your opponent senseless enough to load them into the back of a real ambulance, shut the door, and watch them get driven away to a hospital local medical facility.

Before that, though, I chose to beat my opponent around and on top of the ambulance, which you can scale thanks to its ladder. While I was disappointed you aren’t able to physically hurl opponents off the top, you can execute moves on the roof or dive off of it. 

Opening and closing the ambulance doors is a necessary step, and the latter can be used to put a small roadblock in the way of your opponent when they have the upper hand. Once a superstar is tossed inside, a button-mashing minigame ensues as one player fights to close the door while the other battles to force their way out. This back-and-forth was fun and elicited a lot of shouting with my co-op partner.

Winning this battle as the player outside the vehicle triggers a final struggle as the victim attempts one last gasp to keep the door open moments before you shut it for good. I noticed the game seems to heavily favor the player inside the vehicle in this second attempt; mashing the button on the opposing end was noticeably harder. As such, it took several more tries and dishing out more abuse before I stunned my opponent, which wound up giving me enough of an edge to close the doors shut and send them packing. 

Ambulance Matches aren’t my favorite match type in real life; they’re rarely great or memorable. 2K24’s interpretation accurately replicates the thrill of the matches’ final moments, and it’s entertaining to an extent, but I don’t see myself playing the match very often in the face of more entertaining stipulations.

Overall Thoughts

The WWE 2K games are dense packages filled with modes and features, so it’s impossible to get a complete sense of their quality in small slices such as this. My key takeaway is that 2K24 doesn’t feel like a regression. If you’ve enjoyed the recent entries, odds are you’ll have a good time here, too. The presentation and superstar models (the ones I’ve seen, at least) look great, the gameplay retains the more pick-up-and-play-friendly controls of 2K23, and smaller additions, such as the ability to throw weapons, only add instead of subtract. It remains to be seen how much of an iteration this year’s game is compared to its predecessor, but I’m optimistic it will, at the very least, maintain the same level of quality. WWE is coming off of the best years it’s ever had in terms of its TV product, and I’m hopeful that momentum will rub off on 2K24.

The Roster So Far

2K will be rolling out roster reveals in the near future, but I can reveal the superstars playable in my demo.

  • Asuka
  • Bayley
  • Becky Lynch
  • Bianca Belair
  • Charlotte Flair
  • Cody Rhodes
  • Dakota Kai
  • Hulk Hogan ’02
  • Iyo Sky
  • Kevin Owens
  • Kofi Kingston
  • LA Knight
  • Randy Orton
  • Rhea Ripley
  • Rick Rude
  • Roman Reigns
  • Sami Zayn
  • Seth “Freakin” Rollins
  • Shayna Baszler
  • “Stone Cold” Steve Austin ’97
  • Trish Stratus
  • Ultimate Warrior
  • Undertaker
  • Xavier Woods
  • Zelina Vega

WWE 2K24 launches on March 8 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. You can learn about everything it has to offer here.