- Fluid Interfaces
Pat Pataranutaporn, Ph.D. is a technologist and a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He serves as a co-director of MIT Media Lab Advancing Humans with AI (AHA) research program Research Program. His research lies at the intersection of AI and human-computer interaction, where he develops and studies AI systems that support human flourishing. Through large-scale experimental studies, Pataranutaporn demonstrates how AI can support human flourishing across various cognitive tasks, including reasoning, decision making, learning and self development. Pataranutaporn’s research on AI-generated conversational characters was among the first to showcase positive applications of generative AI in supporting human learning and motivating individuals to explore and understand themselves and the world around them. His methodology integrates prototype development with qualitative, quantitative, and exploratory research methods, enabling a comprehensive examination of human-AI interaction.
Pataranutaporn’s research contributions have been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and conferences, such as Nature Machine Intelligence, IEEE, ACM SIGCHI, ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM ISWC, and ACM Augmented Humans. His work has been highlighted by the United Nations AI for Good forum, and has been featured in Scientific American, MIT Tech Review, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, The Guardian, Forbes, National Geographic, SXSW, and the Disruptive Innovation Festival. Pataranutaporn’s work has also been honored as one of TIME’s “Best Inventions of 2023” and was included in Fast Company’s “2023 World Changing Ideas.”
Pataranutaporn has been awarded fellowships and grants by multiple research agencies and corporations, including NASA, OpenAI, MIT J-WEL, KBTG, Bose, MQDC, and NTT Data. He has also collaborated with researchers from both academia and industry, including researchers from Stanford Medicine, Harvard, Mass General Brigham, UCSB, UCLA, UC Irvine, Microsoft Research, OpenAI, NTT Data, and more.
Pat’s projects have been exhibited at the MIT Museum (Massachusetts), Asia Pacific Triennial (Queensland Art Gallery, Australia), The Art Gallery of Western Australia (Australia) MAXXI – National Museum of 21st Century Art (Italy), Bangkok Art Biennale (Thailand), Bangkok City Gallery (Thailand), National Museum of Singapore (Singapore), Essex Peabody Museum (USA), London Design Festival (UK), Transmediale Festival (Germany), National Taiwan Science Education Center (Taiwan), IDEA Museum (Arizona), Mesa Arts Center (Arizona), Autodesk Gallery (California), SIGGRAPH Asia (Tokyo), Ars Electronica (Virtual) and more.
Pataranutaporn co-designed and taught one of the first MIT courses on “Generative AI,” developed to provide students with the essential knowledge and skills required to navigate the frontiers of this emerging field and he co-organized the first workshop on virtual AI humans, attended by over 1600 remotely and over 200 in person in 2021.
Pat also serve as the co-creator and writer for the Netflix sci-fi anthology series “Tomorrow and i” premiered in 2024.
(Updated on March 21, 2025)