Research activities
CSAIL's research activities are organized around a number of semi-autonomous research groups, each of which is headed by one or more professors or research scientists. These groups are divided up into seven general areas of research: * Artificial intelligence * Computational biology * Graphics and vision *History
Computing Research at MIT began with Vannevar Bush's research into a differential analyzer and Claude Shannon's electronic Boolean algebra in the 1930s, the wartime MIT Radiation Laboratory, the post-war Project Whirlwind and Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), and MIT Lincoln Laboratory's SAGE in the early 1950s. At MIT, research in the field of artificial intelligence began in the late 1950s.Project MAC
On July 1, 1963, Project MAC (the Project on Mathematics and Computation, later backronymed to Multiple Access Computer, Machine Aided Cognitions, or Man and Computer) was launched with a $2 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Project MAC's original director was Robert Fano of MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE). Fano decided to call MAC a "project" rather than a "laboratory" for reasons of internal MIT politics – if MAC had been called a laboratory, then it would have been more difficult to raid other MIT departments for research staff. The program manager responsible for the DARPA grant was J. C. R. Licklider, who had previously been at MIT conducting research in RLE, and would later succeed Fano as director of Project MAC. Project MAC would become famous for groundbreaking research inAI Lab and LCS
In the late 1960s, Minsky's artificial intelligence group was seeking more space, and was unable to get satisfaction from project director Licklider. Minsky found that although Project MAC as a single entity could not get the additional space he wanted, he could split off to form his own laboratory and then be entitled to more office space. As a result, the MIT AI Lab was formed in 1970, and many of Minsky's AI colleagues left Project MAC to join him in the new laboratory, while most of the remaining members went on to form the Laboratory for Computer Science. Talented programmers such as Richard Stallman, who used TECO to develop EMACS, flourished in the AI Lab during this time. Those researchers who did not join the smaller AI Lab formed the Laboratory for Computer Science and continued their research intoCSAIL
On the fortieth anniversary of Project MAC's establishment, July 1, 2003, LCS was merged with the AI Lab to form the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, or CSAIL. This merger created the largest laboratory (over 600 personnel) on the MIT campus and was regarded as a reuniting of the diversified elements of Project MAC. In 2018, CSAIL launched a five-year collaboration program with IFlytek, a company sanctioned the following year for allegedly using its technology for surveillance and human rights abuses in Xinjiang. In October 2019, MIT announced that it would review its partnerships with sanctioned firms such as iFlyTek and SenseTime. In April 2020, the agreement with iFlyTek was terminated. CSAIL moved from the School of Engineering to the newly formed Schwarzman College of Computing by February 2020.Offices
From 1963 to 2004, Project MAC, LCS, the AI Lab, and CSAIL had their offices at 545 Technology Square, taking over more and more floors of the building over the years. In 2004, CSAIL moved to the new Ray and Maria Stata Center, which was built specifically to house it and other departments.Outreach activities
The IMARA (from Swahili word for "power") group sponsors a variety of outreach programs that bridge the global digital divide. Its aim is to find and implement long-term, sustainable solutions which will increase the availability of educational technology and resources to domestic and international communities. These projects are run under the aegis of CSAIL and staffed by MIT volunteers who give training, install and donate computer setups in greater Boston, Massachusetts, Kenya, Native American Indian tribal reservations in the American Southwest such as the Navajo Nation, theNotable researchers
(Including members and alumni of CSAIL's predecessor laboratories) * MacArthur Fellows Tim Berners-Lee, Erik Demaine, Dina Katabi, Daniela L. Rus, Regina Barzilay, Peter Shor, Richard Stallman, and Joshua Tenenbaum * Turing Award recipients Leonard M. Adleman, Fernando J. Corbató, Shafi Goldwasser, Butler W. Lampson, John McCarthy, Silvio Micali, Marvin Minsky, Ronald L. Rivest, Adi Shamir, Barbara Liskov, and Michael Stonebraker * IJCAI Computers and Thought Award recipients Terry Winograd, Patrick Winston, David Marr, Gerald Jay Sussman, Rodney Brooks * Rolf Nevanlinna Prize recipients Madhu Sudan, Peter Shor, Constantinos Daskalakis * Gödel Prize recipients Shafi Goldwasser (two-time recipient), Silvio Micali, Maurice Herlihy, Charles Rackoff, Johan Håstad, Peter Shor, and Madhu Sudan * Grace Murray Hopper Award recipients Robert Metcalfe, Shafi Goldwasser, Guy L. Steele, Jr., Richard Stallman, and W. Daniel Hillis * Textbook authors Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman, Richard Stallman, Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Patrick Winston, Ronald L. Rivest, Barbara Liskov, John Guttag, Jerome H. Saltzer, Frans Kaashoek, Clifford Stein, and Nancy Lynch * David D. Clark, former chief protocol architect for the Internet; co-author with Jerome H. Saltzer (also a CSAIL member) and David P. Reed of the influential paper " End-to-End Arguments in Systems Design" * Eric Grimson, expert on computer vision and its applications to medicine, appointed Chancellor of MIT March 2011 * Bob Frankston, co-developer of VisiCalc, the first computer spreadsheet * Seymour Papert, inventor of the Logo programming language * Joseph Weizenbaum, creator of the ELIZA computer-simulated therapistNotable alumni
* Robert Metcalfe, who later invented Ethernet at Xerox PARC and later founded 3Com * Marc Raibert, who created the robot company Boston Dynamics * Drew Houston, co-founder of Dropbox * Colin Angle and Helen Greiner who, with previous CSAIL director Rodney Brooks, founded iRobot * Jeremy Wertheimer, who developed ITA Software used by travel websites like Kayak and Orbitz * Max Krohn, co-founder of OkCupidDirectors
;Directors of Project MAC * Robert Fano, 1963–1968 * J. C. R. Licklider, 1968–1971 * Edward Fredkin, 1971–1974 * Michael Dertouzos, 1974–1975 ;Directors of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory * Marvin Minsky, 1970–1972 * Patrick Winston, 1972–1997 * Rodney Brooks, 1997–2003 ;Directors of the Laboratory for Computer Science * Michael Dertouzos, 1975–2001 * Victor Zue, 2001–2003 ;Directors of CSAIL * Rodney Brooks, 2003–2007 * Victor Zue, 2007–2011 * Anant Agarwal, 2011–2012 * Daniela L. Rus, 2012–CSAIL Alliances
CSAIL Alliances is the industry connection arm of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). CSAIL Alliances offers companies programs to connect with the research, faculty, students, and startups of CSAIL by providing organizations with opportunities to learn about the research, engage with students, explore collaborations with researchers, and join research initiatives such as FinTech at CSAIL, MIT Future of Data, and Machine Learning Applications.See also
* Artificial intelligence * Glossary of artificial intelligence * CERIAS * History of operating systems * Knight keyboard * Stanford Artificial Intelligence LaboratoryReferences
Further reading
* , Chious et al. — includes important information on the Incompatible Timesharing System *External links
* of CSAIL, successor of the AI Lab {{authority control Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Artificial intelligence laboratories Computer science institutes in the United States Laboratories in the United States Information technology research institutes Research institutes in Massachusetts Robotics organizations Scientific organizations established in 2003 2003 establishments in Massachusetts 2003 in computing History of artificial intelligence Computer science institutes Computer science departments in the United States