AHA Program Highlights

Why this program?

We are in a period of rapid development in AI, with most of that development happening in industry rather than academia. Developers of foundational AI models and applications are in a race to reach AGI, spending most of their energy and attention on engineering challenges and optimization of AI models. While they are focused on issues such as improving accuracy, efficiency, safety and reducing bias, they devote less attention to understanding how people respond to interacting with seemingly intelligent systems and how to best design models, interfaces and applications to maximize desired human outcomes. 

Having AI at one's fingertips could lead to over-reliance on AI, manipulation and misinformation, dependence and loss of skills, as well as unhealthy emotional attachments to AI chatbots. In addition, many fear AI may lead to negative mental health outcomes and societal disruption as people gradually are surpassed by AI in the highest intellectual endeavors including creativity, discovery, reasoning and problem solving. 

The AHA program aims to understand people’s responses to AI in the shorter and longer term, with the aim of designing AI such that people maintain agency and meaning as well as healthy social networks. While related non-profit organizations have been created to study the ethics of AI, AI safety issues, and to develop open AI models and resources, to our knowledge there is no significant effort dedicated to understanding the impact of AI on people’s social, emotional and intellectual wellbeing.

Research Focus

1. Comprehension & Agency
We study how AI interactions can enhance critical thinking skills and preserve human agency by supporting human reasoning, and helping people maintain discernment in an increasingly complex information landscape.

2. Physical & Mental Wellbeing
Our work investigates holistic approaches to both physical and mental wellbeing, exploring how AI can support behavior change, monitor health patterns, and provide personalized support.

3. Curiosity & Learning
Our research explores personalized learning experiences that adapt to individual interests and knowledge gaps, motivating deeper engagement through AI systems that support each person's unique learning journey.

4. Creativity & Expression
We design AI systems that empower people's creative agency, designing interactions
that amplify diverse artistic expressions while fostering deeper appreciation for human creativity across cultures.

5. Sense of Purpose
We study how human-AI interactions can help people identify and pursue their unique values and longterm goals while creating opportunities for meaningful contributions to society.

6. Healthy Social Lives
We examine how AI can strengthen authentic human connections instead of replacing them, designing technologies that enhance rather than diminish the richness of interpersonal relationships.

Major Projects

Complementing its extensive research agenda, the AHA program has established these ambitious goals:

Program pillars

Apart from the program’s research activities centered at the MIT Media Lab, a series of events and communications of the program aim to to foster broader discussion and awareness and invite collaboration and innovation with multiple stakeholders:

• Annual symposium: This event brings together leading experts, researchers, and professionals to discuss the latest advancements and challenges in human-AI interaction. Attendees can expect to gain exposure to cutting-edge ideas, connect with thought leaders in the field, and learn best practices grounded in research results.
• Focused workshops: These more frequent and more intimate, hands-on sessions dive into specific topics of Human-AI interaction, providing participants with practical skills and deeper insights and offering opportunities for hands-on collaboration with both experts, target user groups and other stake holders. 
• Social media accounts: Our regular updates using both shorter and longer formats will keep the community abreast about the latest news, research findings, and events related to human-AI interaction and its human consequences.  Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and X for regular updates. 
• Speaker series: This series will feature interviews and discussions with thought leaders and pioneers in the field providing access to thought-provoking content and the opportunity to engage with speakers.

Get involved

The AHA program is structured to foster open collaboration and innovation while empowering supporters to direct some of the research and be more closely involved. Corporations, foundations and individuals have multiple opportunities to support the program and get involved:

• Support for the overall AHA program through an unrestricted gift ensures that the AHA program thrives and that we can broaden our research and share our findings with the widest audience possible.
• Support for student fellowships ensures that we can grow our research community and tackle more of the questions and themes. It also results in well rounded graduates who upon graduation join the private or public sector where they can further influence AI development in ways that benefit people. Donors of student fellowship funds can direct their support to the research themes they are most passionate about.
• Support for focused research projects: Supporters can choose to fund and collaborate on a specific study or research project based on their interests.
• Media Lab member companies have access to all AHA program activities and research and are encouraged to get more closely involved through one of the options above. 

For more information please contact aha@media.mit.edu.

Leadership

• Pattie Maes, co-lead of the AHA program,  Germeshausen professor of Media Technology and director of the Fluid Interfaces group, has 30+ years of expertise in research at the intersection of AI and human-computer interaction. Maes’ group focuses on design of AI systems that augment decision making, learning, health and wellbeing.
• Pat Pataranutaporn, co-lead of the AHA program, MIT Media Lab postdoctoral researcher in the Fluid Interfaces group. Pat’s research lies at the intersection of AI and human-computer interaction, where he develops and studies AI systems that support human flourishing.
• Andrew Lippman, Senior research scientist,  Director of the Viral Communications group & Associate Director of the MIT Media Lab
• Cynthia Breazeal, Professor at the MIT Media Lab, Director of the Personal Robots group, MIT Dean for Digital Learning
• Paul Liang, Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab and MIT EECS, Director of the Multisensory Intelligence research group
• Hiroshi Ishii, Professor and Associate Director at the MIT Media Lab, Director of the Tangible Media group
• Deb Roy, Professor at the MIT Media Lab, Director of MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication
• Tod Machover, Professor at the MIT Media Lab, Director of the Opera of the Future Group
• Mitchel Resnick, Professor at the MIT Media Lab, Director of the Lifelong Kindergarten group
• Joseph A. Paradiso, Professor at the MIT Media Lab, Director of the Responsive Environment group
• Rosalind Picard , Grover M. Hermann Professor in Health Sciences and Technology and director of the Affective Computing Group,  has 30+ years of expertise in research related to AI, wearables, and human health and wellbeing.  Picard’s group focuses on innovative solutions to help people who are not flourishing or at risk of not flourishing.
• Ramesh Raskar, Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, Director of Camera Culture Group.
• Kent Larson, Professor of the Practice, Director of City Science Group
• Behnaz Farahi, Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, Director of Critical Matter group
• Zach Lieberman, Adjunct Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, Director of Future Sketches group

Support AHA

This fund supports groundbreaking research and external collaborations across MIT and beyond, catalyzing interdisciplinary projects that address critical issues in AI’s impact on how we work, learn, socialize, communicate, and stay well. Under the guidance of the AHA program leads and the AHA advisory council, funding is directed toward:

New research projects
Supporting pioneering studies that investigate, invent and inspire critical issues in the human-AI experience.

Workshops 
Enabling the convening of experts and stakeholders from industry, academia and the government to collaborate on specific challenges and produce guidelines, benchmarks and recommendations for the development and deployment of AI that benefits people.

Annual symposium and speaker series
Supports the organization of our annual conference as well as our online speaker series to raise awareness around the issues of Human AI interaction and share our findings and recommendations with the widest audience possible.

Student fellowship opportunities
Ensures that we can grow our group of researchers and tackle more of the important questions and problems. It also results in well rounded students who upon graduation join the private or public sector where they can further influence AI development in ways that benefit people.

Donors of student fellowship funds can direct their support to the AHA research areas they are most passionate about, e.g. mental health, learning, creativity, and more.

Focused research projects
Enables collaboration between the donor and Media Lab researchers on a specific study or research project based on shared interests. Involves a statement of work and list of deliverables.

Endowed faculty chairs
Creates opportunities to establish named, endowed faculty positions dedicated to research and in AI that advances people.

Follow Us on Social Media

Examples of research in inspiring curiosity and learning

Examples of research supporting creativity and expression

Examples of research suppporting comprehension, reasoning, and agency 

Examples of research supporting self sufficiency and a sense of purpose

Examples of research supporting emotional wellbeing