Engineer Quips: Crafting Artificial Intelligence Worth Your While

“Creating AI that matters”

“In this time of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence, how can we ensure the technology actually benefits humanity? That’s one of the big questions that Marché Koff, an MIT graduate student in machine learning and a Schwarzman Scholar, is trying to answer.”

Yeah, we’ve all seen the movies where robots rise up and take over the world. But, let’s be serious here. The real concern with AI isn’t one of mutinous machines, but whether these high-tech algorithms are actually adding value to society.

That’s where our friend, Marché Koff steps into the spotlight. The star student at MIT, when she isn’t partying at frat houses, is putting her brains to work to ensure our AI counterparts aren’t just mindlessly crunching number codes.

Koff, a product of the Antilles School on St. Thomas (on an unrelated note, sign us up for a vacation there!), is whacking her proverbial machete through the AI jungle, hacking away at commercial exploitation and sketchy ethics.

Apparently, the good folks at MIT’s Quest for Intelligence saw her rollin’ and they decided to let her do her thing at the Bridge to the Future of AI workshop. Frankly, that’s a mouthful, but basically this workshop is all about developing AI technologies that have a meaningful input in our lives.

Our Caribbean Einstein, apart from throwing around phrases like “sociotechnical systems”, is making waves with how she approaches AI’s role in our society. It ain’t all about making money in Silicon Valley or helping Alexa understand our love for Taylor Swift songs at 2 am, you see. Koff is looking to equip AI with the proverbial bag of tools to detect fraudulent financial transactions, improve climate modeling and determine the best education strategies.

The tiny island wonder doesn’t stop there. One of her main projects focused on how machines can understand, from large data sets, the link between a student’s education and their career outcomes. Now, wouldn’t we all love to have an AI that can predict the likelihood of landing a job after that $100,000 philosophy degree?

So, the next time you’re somehow drawn into a conversation about AI, remember to drop Marché Koff’s name. At least, then you’ll sound like you know what you’re talking about. After all, she’s the one out there making sure AI doesn’t end up as just another over-hyped tech fad, but a technology that’s actually useful. How ’bout that for a plot twist?

Read the original article here: https://news.mit.edu/2025/creating-ai-that-matters-1021