Forum Network

Do recent advances in artificial intelligence herald a new stage of human development? Or is the current AI fervor yet another technology hype?

Rapid advances in AI have captured considerable public interest. Like prior technology developments, we can increasingly replace human activity with machines. But while prior technology developments deeply affected physical labor, AI developments (particularly generative AI) encroach on what was previously an entirely human domain -- knowledge work. Machines now seem to be able to think and learn. With these developments, we may see liberation from routine tasks, standardization of processes, and a head start on human learning. But we may instead see unemployment from job displacement, bias at a massive scale, and a race to mediocrity.

“Has the machine in its last furious manifestation begun to eliminate workers faster than new tasks can be found for them?” Stuart Chase asked this topical question in his book, “Men and Machines” -- in 1929. While everyone seems to talk about artificial intelligence, we’ll talk about what people are really doing now and where they seem to be headed.

The discussion builds from a 10-year MIT Sloan Management Review research program and stories from the Me, Myself, and AI podcast. In particular, we’ll focus on the role of human agency in choosing how we use these exciting tool developments.

The Charles River Museum hosts EWB-USA CEO Boris Martin, Former EWB-USA Board President Dr. Chris Lombardo, and EWB-USA volunteers from across the New England area for a forward-moving Mill Talk on community engineering. Expect to be regaled with stories of impact, engaged in reflection on engineers’ and educators’ calling, and moved toward action to build a better world.

The sustainable future we are collectively building comes with significant environmental costs, primarily felt by the global south. The mining and processing of rare earth metals, nickel, cobalt, copper, and many other critical materials, essential for electrification and renewable technologies, often result in considerable ecological damage.

These activities can lead to deforestation, contamination of water sources, soil erosion, and the emission of harmful gases. Consequently, the health and safety of workers and local residents are compromised along with the environment. All of this stands in stark contrast to the overall goals of the green revolution, but currently represents an unavoidable aspect of progress.

This talk explores how the mining and extraction of these materials, while essential for driving forward the clean energy revolution, often contradicts the principles of environmental stewardship. The lecture particularly focuses on the impact in the global south, where much of the world's mining and refining activities take place, often with less stringent environmental regulations and oversight. This raises critical questions about the true cost of our transition to renewable energy and electric mobility.

In response to these challenges, Dr. Tomas Villalón shares Phoenix Tailings’ transformative approach to mining and material processing. Our innovative strategies aim to revolutionize the industry by extracting rare earth metals and other crucial materials sustainably. He discusses their cutting-edge techniques for minimizing ecological impact through rethinking the approach to material refining and the remediation of toxic waste. By turning a historically pollutive process into a more environmentally responsible one and cleaning up the toxic byproducts of mining operations, Phoenix Tailings is not only contributing to the cleaner production of electrification materials but also paving the way for a more equitable and truly sustainable future.

Readings and performances of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol have played an integral part in winter holiday festivities since longer than most of us can remember. What fewer people know, however, is that the British literary superstar and his popular novella actually helped bring Christmas back to Boston.

Accompanied by a beautiful slide show, Susan Wilson—the Official House Historian of the Parker House—traces the history of Christmas celebrations, which were discouraged and even banned in the Puritan stronghold of colonial Boston. Wilson explains how and why Christmas finally began to be embraced in the mid 19th century, and how Charles Dickens' arrival in 1867—when he made his home at the Parker House for 5 months—really added fuel to the yule log.

In the second decade of the 21st Century, a major shift took place in the world of ground transportation. Taxicab drivers – long protected by local barriers to market entry – found themselves overtaken in the marketplace by new and disruptive rideshare services. Uber and Lyft drivers were able to provide a cheaper and simpler and more convenient means of getting around. This has created a significant benefit to consumers, though there have been winners and losers among drivers.  Yet, even for the winners, this profession is now at serious risk of redundancy, thanks to the prospect of the driverless car. While still in development, autonomous vehicles could well mean the end of a livelihood – not only for rideshare drivers, but also for truckers and other vehicle operators – in the years to come. However, this is not a new phenomenon. In this talk, industrial history podcaster Dave Broker explains how, between the 17th and 19th centuries, an almost identical process played out in the British textile trade. It was the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and its explosive consequences should be remembered and studied as we face the economic changes on the horizon.

It's been over a century since a new utility was created. Hear the story of how a small local nonprofit, HEET, has innovated a pathway for gas utilities to become a "thermal utilities," delivering you heating and cooling without combustion. Eversource and National Grid are already selecting sites for the first installations, and over 15 other utilities across the country are following along. Hear the story of innovation and how to create social change across boundaries.

This talk explores a key chapter in trans-Atlantic, U.S., and African American history. The title is from a quote from Malachi Postlethwayt, a British mercantilist theorist in 1745. The book on which this talk is based chronicles contributions made by millions of African peoples and their descendants to the vast “wealth of nations” that financed the economic and social progress of modern Western civilization called the “industrial revolution.” The same global process has been identified as one cause of the “underdevelopment” in Africa and other parts of the world. The phenomenal contribution resulted from the uncompensated labor of enslaved Black peoples across several centuries and on several continents. Prof. Bailey has coined the term “slave(ry) trade”™ to encompass an array of activities generally considered as separate developments. This includes the trade in Africans as commodities; commerce in slave-produced goods, especially sugar and cotton; trade among slave-based economies; production of manufactured goods from slave-produced raw materials; and related financial and commercial activities. The story is narrated in three “acts” focused the slave(ry) trade’s pivotal role in three key periods of global history. Act I is a chronicle of Europe’s journey—especially Portugal and Spain—out of its “Dark” Middle Ages beginning in the 9th century and into a new global system centered around the Atlantic Ocean. With a focus on Great Britain, Act II begins in a world of expanding commerce—the “Age of Reconnaissance” or “Age of Discovery” in the 1500s—the period of mercantilism and the “Triangular Trade” when the colonization of the Americas and other parts of the globe was completed. Great Britain emerges as the first global industrial power in the 18th century. Act III explores the American Revolution and focuses on the role of the slave(ry) trade and the global cotton kingdom in transforming colonial America into a world power as the independent United States, a process that continues with the Civil War in the 1860s.

Cambridge Forum and Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation co-present former poet laureate Richard Blanco who reads from and talks about his new book, _How To Love A Country._ As a presidential inaugural poet, educator, and advocate, Blanco has crisscrossed the nation inviting communities to connect to the heart of the human experience and our shared identity as a country. In this new collection of poems, his first in over seven years, Blanco continues to invite a conversation with all Americans.