To Make Better Choices, Understand How Your Brain Processes Values

Much has been made of the power of habit. But what about our more intentional, conscious day-to-day choices? Emily Falk spoke with Scientific American about how the brain sifts through options and how reflecting on our priorities can help align our behaviors with long-term aims.

• Communication
• Marketing
• Operations Information and Decisions
• Psychology

5 Truths Every Young Professional Needs to Know About AI

The challenge for young people just entering the workforce is twofold: master the technical skills related to AI while navigating uncertainty around career growth. In a new Forbes article, Chris Callison-Burch notes that AI is expanding access to powerful tools, giving young professionals new ways to build and define their careers.

• Computer and Information Science

Why AI Acts So Creepy When Faced With Being Shut Down

“When [an AI] model is set up with an opportunity to fail and you see it fail, that’s super useful information,” said Robert Ghrist to Business Insider. “That means we can predict what it’s going to do in other, more open circumstances.”

• Electrical and Systems Engineering
• Mathematics

How Cable News Has Diverged From Broadcast News

From 2012 to 2022, cable news stations diverged from broadcast news and from each other in the topics they covered and the language they used, according to researchers from Duncan Watts' Computational Social Science Lab.

• Communication
• Computer and Information Science
• Operations Information and Decisions

What Is an NPU? A Penn Expert Explains

In a Penn Today Q&A, Benjamin C. Lee explains what neural processing units are and why they’re showing up in newer consumer electronics like high-end smartphones and laptops. NPUs, he says, are the “frontier” for today’s processor designers.

• Computer and Information Science
• Electrical and Systems Engineering

Guardrails Versus Leashes: Finding a Better Way to Regulate AI Technology

A flexible system of oversight, rather than a rigid one, is needed to make sure AI systems are safe, says Cary Coglianese. He calls it the “leash” approach, mirroring taking a dog for a walk. “We want technological innovation to explore and traverse, but we want to make sure that, as it’s developing, somebody’s overseeing it.”

• Law
• Political Science

Unlocking the Mechanics of Protein Misfolding

An interdisciplinary team led by Lee C. Bassett and Dani Bassett has studied the mechanical properties of prions, the mysterious shape-shifting proteins that are infamous for mad cow disease yet essential for yeast survival.

• Bioengineering
• Electrical and Systems Engineering
• Physics and Astronomy
• Psychiatry

Training Tomorrow’s Data Scientists

This year, as part of its new AI x Science initiative, the Data Driven Discovery Initiative has expanded its four-year-old postdoctoral fellow program to include researchers from Penn Engineering and Penn Medicine using cutting-edge techniques in data science and artificial intelligence.

• Computer and Information Science
• Criminology
• Electrical and Systems Engineering
• Physics and Astronomy
• Radiology

Microelectronics and Entrepreneurship with Kurt Petersen

In the latest episode of Penn Engineering’s Innovation & Impact podcast, Vijay Kumar sat down with one of the most influential figures in modern engineering, Kurt Petersen, widely recognized as the father of microelectromechanical systems.

• Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

Penn Students Innovate in the Time of AI

Academic year 2024-25 was a milestone for artificial intelligence at Penn: It saw the introduction of the Penn AI Council, the launch of the Penn AI Initiative, the opening of Amy Gutmann Hall as a space for campus-wide data science and AI collaboration, and the first AI Month at Penn.