Talk:MIT Media Lab

Criticism
I am opening up a discussion page, since this page frequently seems to get vandalized by some dude putting in references to "all icing an no cake" or "humourously described as the marketing dept. of MIT." This sort of colloquial critisism is inappropriate in an encyclopedic entry. I would suggest that someone revert to the page of 6-July-2005. I think having critism of the quality of some of the research at the Media Lab is fine, and, indeed, necessary to represent the lab accurately.

Nevertheless, it needs to be based on facts, and ideally, by citing others criticizing the lab, rather than by stating opinions in the article. Statements like "the Media lab's contribution to substantive scientific research is all but non-existent" are blatently false -- for instance, the quantum computing group had several firsts in fairly fundamental physics, and currently has a quantum computer capable of factoring 15. It has some of the top researchers worldwide in the field. Also, there are people there doing very important scientific work in several other domains. In addition, not all of the research of the Media Lab is focused on science, and, therefore, should be evaluated not for its scientific quality, but rather by the methods in relevant fields, such as art and design.

There is a second set of edits, also bordering on vandalism, from members of the Media Lab (nslookup the IPs which made those edits --- and to the people making them, moving from 18.* to your home connections is exactly the type of deceitful sleaziness people complain about), which, as far as I can make out, are to remove anything significantly negative stated about the Media Lab, without any given reason. If you are within the Media Lab, be aware that there is a conflict of interest in you editing this page. As a result, please state reasons for the edits on the talkback page. If you simply remove criticism you don't like, without explaining why it is incorrect, I will revert the page. If there are factual mistakes, by all means fix them, and make a note that there was a factual mistake. If there is a stylistic problem (for instance, you view something as too negative), fix the style BUT LEAVE THE CRITISISM. Don't just clip out anything you don't like.

Oh yeah. If you are at the Media Lab, please, please, please write the accomplishments section. I think this is probably THE major hole in the article. If you are genuine about helping make this a good article, do the work, instead of vandalizing anything in it that you do not like.


 * I'm currently working at the lab but editing from home. In terms of the 18.x's, please keep in mind that the people adding the criticism are in most cases also at MIT from "competing" labs.
 * In any case, I cleaned up the criticism section a bit and the last revision in particular which introduced some stylistic issues. I've reworked the style in much of the whole section and removed or moved a couple sentances that were redundant or out of place. I did not (IMHO) remove any criticism.
 * I would like to remove the paragraph on Nicholas Negroponte from the section because it's not clear why the fact that he has been involved in Wired "criticism" of the lab. This should be either explained or removed. As it is, it's confusing and is not particularly effective criticism.
 * -- mako 17:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's been nearly a month without reply to this so I'm going to remove the NN criticism. Please add it to Nicholas' article if you think it belongs in Wikipedia at all. -- mako 20:33, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Criticism section missing
There appears to be no criticism section at all now. That is certainly not consistent with the Media Lab's somewhat mixed reputation in academic circles. If, as the person above claims, criticism has been removed by Media Lab personnel, then this is a problem that should be flagged to get attention from Wikipedia editors. DonPMitchell (talk) 23:30, 20 September 2013 (UTC)


 * DonPMitchell: If the addition of criticism that have references that meet WP:RS and otherwise meet WP's policies and guidelines is deleted, the matter ultimately has to be dealt with by WP editors with administrative and other privileges. You can review the guidelines about this, and use the noticeboards for help.


 * But the first thing to do is add criticism. One way is to go back through this article's history, and add back criticism that meet WP:RS, etc. (this assumes you find such). If you use pop-ups. this can be done fairly fast.


 * I also note that your post about this is the first in over six and a half years. Lentower (talk) 21:26, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Achievements?
What tangible new technologies or inventions have been developed at MIT media lab? It's not quite clear to me.


 * eInk and Lego Mindstorms are probabliy the two of mostly widely known recent technologies that have been developed in the lab and then widely deployed but there are many such projects. I do not know if the lab itself has a complete list. -- mako 19:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

vandalism of MIT Media Lab page
yes I agree the criticism is a bit harsh. and then there are a lot of 18xxx commentators from inside...


 * Both the vandalism and the silencing of critics seems based in the MIT community. Much of this inter-lab animosity has a long and well established history. But it doesn't belong in Wikipedia. -- mako 17:12, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

ohh puhleez! Mako please step off your pedestal, will ya> the halo on your head is boo-hoo stinking!

I would like to learn about the animosity, or, more accurately, the politics.--John Bessa (talk) 00:19, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

theft of credit
"Historically, the Media Lab has had a problem with theft of credit for work."

Is this hearsay or are there some pointers to data that support this assertion? I'm curious as to how the Media Lab compares to other academic entities in this regard.

intelligent design
OK, I don't get the most recent edit, but I'm going to refrain from removing it at this particular juncture. A) how does ONE faculty members views turn into a criticism of the entire lab's "non rigorous approach"? B) I can't read the New York Times article; you have to pay; its a bad link to put as supporting evidence. C) I can't really find, after a brief internet search, any evidence that supports the idea that the Media Lab is a hotbed of intelligent design proponents; and D) although I don't agree with the theological implications of intelligent design as espoused by the most visible supporters of that theory, I don't see why there can be no challenge to Darwin's theories, no scientific search for a more complicated or different answer. So why does the viewpoint of a scientist who's viewpoint I can't even find become a smear on the whole ML? Maybe it just needs to be reqorded in a more NPOV manner. Ms ArtGeek 16:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Please. Remove it. I just read the article and Picard's name is mentioned in passing and in a list of other names. Quick googling didn't turn up much else on the topic except for signing that petition. I know of nobody else in the Media Lab who shares Picard's idea on this. Other more well known Media Lab faculty, like Marvin Minsky, are outspoken critics of religion in all of its forms. This is criticism of Picard and not of the lab and it doesn't belong in this article. I think it should be moved to her page or removed enitrely. There are 500+ scientists who signed that petition and I doubt that every institution that employs any of them needs a similar bit of criticism on its page. —mako 17:06, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Added Research Groups
I added the research groups and their leading professors to give a more fine-grained view of the lab, as well as provide a broad pointer to most faculty. It might be worth moving this to a new page. Any comments? - bwabes 01:25, 8 March 2006 (EST)


 * It's an awful lot of information and comes almost at the beginning of the article... there's a lot of scrolling before you get to the other headings... Is it overkill to have each Media Lab Group have its own entry (a stub at least to start with)? Then this section could be a list of links that only show the group name and project leader (which itself gives an idea of the scope of projects within the article). I do think it's good info to have somewhow connected to the article- I think it's important to show the kinds of work the Media Lab does, how it's different from many other MIT projects in its intent, and the fact that some of the subjects they have to heavily engage range from electronic engineering to psychology to art. Ms ArtGeek 18:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

As per your suggestion, I started a page MIT Media Lab Research Groups that lists links to future stub articles for all the research groups. I'll start moving the group descriptions to their own stubs, but any help would be appreciated.Bwabes 21:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I just encountered this effort as I was watching recent changes. Do you really think this is useful? These articles seem very close to making this subarea of Wikipedia into a web directory for the Media Lab, which is something we are not. I really think this information needs to be presented more concisely. Imagine if every university had an article for every research group! To answer Ms ArtGeek, yes, it's overkill. FreplySpang (talk) 21:35, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The lab is different than other University departments which work around a well defined topic or area of interest. The media has everything from filmmakers to designers to quantum physicists. A list of groups helps demonstrate this fact and the area covered by this broad scope. —mako 00:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I think it would work better in prose - for instance, your phrase "everything from filmmakers to designers to quantum physicists" conveys the idea pretty neatly. Presenting it as a list can be overwhelming to the general reader. But most of all, I would like to avoid having a large set of separate articles unless/until they can be fleshed out. FreplySpang (talk) 00:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll start trying to modify the information to be more concise.Bwabes 21:41, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks. FreplySpang (talk) 21:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

MIT Media Lab Physics and Media
I suppose someone more familiar with MIT could confirm whether this new article is redundant or not. --Shuki 21:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It would seem redundant, as the PMG is part of the Media Lab and is already discussed in the Media Lab article. Walter.bender 23:31, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

spinoffs:

 * Can anyone confirm that Wireless 5th Dimensional Networking is actually an ML spinoff? I'm not finding much about them on the web, and the stub about hybrid search seems totally pointless.

"Institute Professor" nominated for deletion
The article titled Institute Professor has been nominated for deletion by user:Kane5187, who says not all of the 10-or-12-or-so Institute Professors are notable. This while many MIT professors who are not Institute Professors have Wikipedia articles and are universally considered notable (and so do most of the Institute Professors). Please opine at Articles for deletion/Institute Professor. Your input is needed! Michael Hardy 00:58, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

First Picture
Why is that first image even included? That's not (as the picture detail page says) what the atrium of that building looks like. It's kind of a cute picture, but I don't think this article is the place for it. Can we delete it? Right now it's just really confusing, especially with the second image (which is legitimate) looking completely different.

response to all "icing no cake"
The dude you refer to about "vandalizing" is speaking correctly - his source is none other than the godfather of the Media Lab - NN himself: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/mitlab.html excerpted from the wired article

''Students complain that egocentric professors are undermining the Lab's interdisciplinary spirit. And the Lab's reputation as a scientific lightweight - "all icing and no cake," as Negroponte sums up the rap - never seems to die. Designing props for the wacky Flying Karamazov Brothers juggling troupe isn't exactly what the Nobel committee is looking for. ''

Lack of citations in article
On October 1st, 2006 I added "Verification needed" or "citation needed" notes to a number of unsubstantiated, "weasel-worded," and seemingly slanderous/attacking claims in the "Criticism" section. Three months have passed without a single citation being found for any of the malicious claims. If six months pass, I will propose that we remove this section, as they are so vague and sneaky as to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. As Jimmy Wales noted, "There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced." I tend to err on the side of open discussion, which is why I tagged this part with 'needs to cite' tag anyway, and it seems that various parties are battling over the article -- but, this is an extremely odd article. Can't believe this kind of stuff winds up in Wikipedia. (Amaranth12498 06:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC))

The MIT policies regarding intellectual property, which also govern the IP policy of the Media Lab, are found here: http://web.mit.edu/policies/13.1.html. The assertion that students own their inventions is only true in the case that it is "not developed in the course of or pursuant to a sponsored research..." The text in the Criticism Section of the article suggests otherwise. The Media Lab policies are available here: http://www.media.mit.edu/sponsors/ip.html. The goal of these policies, at least under my directorship, were to encourage both the lab's industrial partners and the students to take their ideas and inventions into practice, where they would have maximum impact. --Walter.bender 23:56, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

As noted above, three more months have passed. Not a single criticism in that paragraph has been cited or justified, in the 6 months since the requests for citations was announced. I am now ready to delete the Criticisms section. I will do this within one week. Amaranth12498 19:13, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the criticism section, as the half-year period I gave for anyone to substantiate any of the criticism has passed without a single criticism being substantiated. As Jimmy Wales noted, "There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced." I believe 6 months is enough time for the world to comment on criticisms, and not a single one was cited or defended. Amaranth12498 22:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

18.85.22.204
The user 18.85.22.204 (what appears to be a Media Lab address) should create an account: someone making so many edits to the page should not be doing do anonymously. --Walter.bender 18:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Copyrighted text
Please do not copy text from Media Lab web pages into this article. Wikipedia cannot accept material that is not available under a free license. Also, the descriptions in an Wikipedia article need to be written from a neutral point of view, which an organization's own promotional material usually isn't. I have just removed several group descriptions copied from Media Lab web pages, but I may have missed some. FreplySpang 02:16, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Media Lab "community"
By this I mean the people who were hanging out there in the "old days." Richard M. Stallman comes to mind; I have read that this is were he developed his GNU "manifesto." --John Bessa (talk) 00:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

—==2014 request edit for error in research groups==

The list of research groups currently on the page is partially transposed by one line. The description given for Playful Systems is actually the description for Responsive Environmnets, all the way through to the description for Tangible Media which is listed twice (both correctly and for Synthetic Neurobiology). The correct description of Playful Systems does not appear. I will avoid editing this myself to avoid potential COI issues. Bmayton (talk) 02:23, 19 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Go ahead and make the changes. – S. Rich (talk) 17:48, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Overhaul needed :)
A rewrite is in order. Perhaps along the lines of other long-standing departments/divisions? Bell Labs, Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Princeton Institute for Advanced Study...

... – SJ  +  16:18, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Sections: "History", "Buildings" / "Art and architecture", "People", "Research Groups", "Publications"
 * Buildings: Both have some architectural and historic interest.
 * Research: For each group, list the primary researchers and core projects [major projects already have their own articles]. A couple research groups have individual articles that could be merged here.
 * Publications: Would need paring and focus, there is quite a lot [and no central page of same for the whole lab, only individual groups, afaict]
 * People: most profs have their own article; needs comprehension. Perhaps best suited to category.
 * Art: faculty have produced some excellent contemporary art: both installations and permanent pieces.

Text removed from article
This is still pretty bad; acting on some of the overhaul notes above. – SJ + 20:31, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Here are some removed paras of detail that were poorly cited and don't seem significant:

This focus (adaptability) was highlighted by the May 9, 2007 symposium h2.0: new minds, new bodies, new identities. The event was organized by Hugh Herr and John Hockenberry, and featured Oliver Sacks, Michael Graves, Aimee Mullins, Michael Chorost, Susan Hockfield, among other speakers. The day-long program featured work that is blurring the distinction between "able bodied" and "disabled," demonstrating technologies at the neural-digital interface. Work represented emphasized the merging of technology with bodies and minds, altering the conceptions of human capability. New research initiatives were discussed, such as techniques to treat conditions such as Alzheimer's disease or depression, to sociable robots for monitoring the health of children or the elderly, to the development of smart prostheses that can mimic—and exceed—the capabilities of biological limbs. The symposium provided many examples of work that is the next step in the so-called "digital revolution." Research projects at the Media Lab aim to have a deep impact on humanity at large. This work, while initially intended for those considered to be "disabled," can ultimately improve life for all humanity.

While this includes traditional user interface design, most groups working on this take a broader view. Several groups are working on adding sensors and actuators of different sorts to common objects in the environment, to create "intelligent objects" that are aware of their surroundings, capable of predicting the user's goals and emotional state, and so can assist the user in a more effective way.

During the last years, new research groups have been born, whose scope goes beyond the applied science for industry and business. That is the case of the Macro Connections Group, which intends to develop new ways of processing data and transform it into meaningful knowledge. The Observatory of Economic Complexity, a joint venture with Harvard HKS/CID, has been developing the concept of Economic Complexity, proposed as an alternative economic measure. A series of visualizations such as the Product Exports Treemaps and the Product Space have been developed in the framework of this project as well.

More removed uncited text; couldn't find any such ref or spinoff: The Media Lab Web site has a section "Annual report to the president" that shows major achievements on a year-to-year basis.
 * Honors and awards


 * The SPINNER project can automatically edit video to fit a narrative structure.

Ito's description as "antidisciplinary" has been removed (again)
Joi Ito's description of the lab as antidisciplinary has been removed (again), and it's been removed on the very day that the media is reporting significant increase in the lab's growing Epstein scandal, which scandal seems to make Ito's description all the more interesting. Anyway, just a footnote. No suggestion here on what to do about any of this, if anything at all. Bob Enyart, Denver KGOV radio host (talk) 21:57, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Any reason not to Wikilink Jeffrey Epstein's name?
It seemed odd to me that it wasn't, and at a quick glance I didn't see anything on the Talk page about it, so I decided to be bold and link it.

Is there some point of principle here that I'm missing?

Dpbsmith (talk) 21:10, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Request to update lede to include Goodwin Procter report
I'd like to ask that the Goodwin Procter report regarding the donations from Jeffrey Epstein be referenced in the lede. Currently, the launch of the investigation is referenced in the lede, but the results of the investigation are only referenced in the MIT_Media_Lab section. ChiaLynn (talk) 21:12, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

No OpenAg reference?
As of 6 November 2020, there does not seem to be any reference to the wikipedia OpenAg page, or any other mention of OpenAg. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceblair (talk • contribs) 21:11, 6 November 2020 (UTC)