AI Ethics as Public Relations Risk Management
Edmond Awad, Sydney Levine, Sohan Dsouza, Iyad Rahwan | E14-514B
Amidst their race towards the deployment of AI technologies, manufacturers are realizing that they must make critical decisions about how AI systems will handle morally charged situations. The ethics of AI systems pose a high risk in terms of public relations and marketing, if public expectations are not well-managed. For example, if a car company promises that their driverless cars will never face dilemmas, but they end up killing children, people may overreact. On the other hand, admitting that the cars may be programmed to sacrifice the occupant if necessary may scare off potential customers. This workshop will highlight the PR risks that companies may face in light of the lessons we are learning from our recent work on the ethics of AI. We will then suggest techniques for devising solutions to the PR challenges that developers of AI are likely to face. The workshop includes a hands-on session in which member companies can reflect on these lessons and apply them to their own contexts.

AI for Impact
Ramesh Raskar | E14-244
At the MIT Media Lab, our aim is to influence and improve human lives. Recent changes and developments in artificial intelligence offer new possibilities for research and development. Join us for a two-hour sprint to spot opportunities for advances in both the developing and developed world as we look for solutions with the potential to impact billions of lives. We look forward to working with you and exploring potential collaborations. All interested member companies are welcome to attend. 

Cars as Public Transportation
Toshiba Corporation | E14-493
With the rise of ridesharing, cars increasingly are becoming shared assets. Autonomous driving technologies have the potential to push this trend further, to the point where cars could be viewed as public transportation. In this workshop, we will show how many issues associated with public transportation—such as bad manners and lost items—also apply to shared cars, and discuss systems and services for addressing these anticipated issues to help us think about what cars should be like in the future.

Next Gen Systems for CyberSecurity and Privacy 
Sandy Pentland | E15-359
In conjunction with the EU, we are building open source software systems that are both qualitatively more secure than current systems and compliant with EU privacy and localization law. We will test these systems at whole-country scale in Latin America and Africa by the end of 2017.

Ultimate Media / CE 2.0 
V. Michael Bove, Andrew Lippman | E14-240
Ultimate Media is a Media Lab SIG that is creating a platform for the invention, creation, and realization of new ways to explore and participate in the media universe. We apply extremes of access, processing, and interaction to build new media experiences and explorations that permit instant video blogging, exploration of the universe of news and narrative entertainment, and physical interfaces that allow people to collaborate around media. CE 2.0 is a collaboration between the Media Lab and its member companies to formulate the principles for a new generation of consumer electronics that are highly connected, seamlessly interoperable, situation-aware, and radically simpler to use. Our goal is to show that as computing and communication capability seep into more of our everyday devices, these devices do not have to become more confusing and complex, but rather can become more intelligent in a cooperative and user-friendly way. Due to space constraints, participation is limited to two people per member company. Dinner will be served. Please RSVP! (dw@media.mit.edu

Virtual Reality for Learning and Collaboration
Scott  Greenwald, Misha Sra, Pattie Maes | E15-341
VR is a promising new medium for learning and collaboration. We are developing software and hardware solutions to support these activities, and building prototype VR experiences that allow us to test their use and efficacy. Designing for open-ended interactions with physical simulations provides a versatile, engaging, and important set of learning use cases. The ability for learners to share these experiences, interacting and collaborating with each other, creates a powerful combination of novel insights and social motivation.