About the Laboratory for Social MachinesIn a time of growing political polarization and institutional distrust, social networks have the potential to remake the public sphere as a realm where institutions and individuals can come together to understand, debate and act on societal problems. To date, large-scale, decentralized digital networks have been better at disrupting old hierarchies than constructing new, sustainable systems to replace them. Existing tools and practices for understanding and harnessing this emerging media ecosystem are being outstripped by its rapid evolution and complexity.Laboratory for Social MachinesL4SM_51f145c2-4dd6-11e4-8a3f-3400cd974292MIT Media LabPreeta BansalSENIOR ADVISOR AND VISITING SCHOLAR -- Preeta was Solicitor General of the State of New York, General Counsel & Senior Policy Advisor in the Obama White House for the Office of Management and Budget, a global general counsel for HSBC, and Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. She is currently also a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School.Sophie ChouRESEARCH ASSISTANT -- Sophie completed a BS in Computer Science with a focus on Machine Learning at Columbia University and is an MAS student at Social Machines.Philip DecampRESEARCH SCIENTIST -- Philip completed a PhD in data visualization at the Media Lab and leads platform development at Social Machines.Allen GorinVISITING SCHOLAR -- Allen invented AT&T’s “How May I Help You?” voice natural language technology, deployed nationally in 2001 and handling millions of callers each month. He is an IEEE Fellow, recipient of the AT&T Science & Technology Medal and the AT&T Strategic Patent Award. He then led research into exploiting the fusion of content and network context. He is also affiliated with the JHU HLT CoE.Tarana GuptaRESEARCH ASSOCIATE -- Tarana has a MS in UX Research & Technology from NYU and is an interaction designer/researcher at Social Machines.James KondoVISITING SCIENTIST -- James is Vice President at Twitter and Adjunct Professor at Hitotsubashi University. Formerly, James was a Special Advisor to the Cabinet of Japanese Government, and used to run the G8 Global Health Summit.Perng-Hwa (Paul) KungRESEARCH ASSISTANT -- Paul is a first-year graduate student at Social Machines. He has a Master in Computer Science from National Taiwan University specializing in network analysis and machine learning.Prashanth LavanyaRESEARCH ASSISTANT -- Prashanth is a first-year graduate student at Social Machines. He has a Bachelor of Engineering from Anna University in India. His interests include building applications that involve machine learning and neural networks.Neo MohsenvandRESEARCH ASSISTANT -- Neo (Mostafa) finished a Master in Mathematical Modeling and Scientific Computing at Oxford University and is focusing at Social Machines on exploratory data analysis and unsupervised pattern discovery in social media data.Heather PierceADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT -- Heather completed a BS in Marketing Communications at Emerson College and is the Administrative Assistant to Social Machines.William PowersRESEARCH SCIENTIST -- William is an award-winning media critic and New York Times bestselling author, and was director of The Crowdwire project. At Social Machines he’s developing new tools for social discourse.Deb RoyDIRECTOR -- Deb is an associate professor at the MIT Media Lab, and Chief Media Scientist at Twitter.Martin SaveskiRESEARCH ASSISTANT -- A first-year graduate student at Social Machines, Martin received a Master in Data Mining and Knowledge Management from University Pierre and Marie Curie (Paris VI) and Polytechnic University of Catalonia. Martin’s research interests include large-scale machine learning, network analysis and natural language processing.Russell StevensRESEARCH STRATEGIST -- Russell received a Master in Public Policy from Harvard prior to a career in communications strategy. He focuses on research planning and deployment at Social Machines.Ben SwansonRESEARCH SCIENTIST -- Ben finished a PhD in Natural Language Processing at Brown University.Ivan SysoevRESEARCH ASSISTANT -- Ivan received a Master in Computer Science from Georgia Tech and is interested in artificial intelligence and human cognition at Social Machines.Soroush VosoughiRESEARCH ASSISTANT -- Soroush is a Ph.D. candidate at Social Machines where he is developing a computational model of rumors in social media with the goal of creating a real-time rumor verification system for social media. Soroush's research interests include natural language processing, machine learning and complex systems. Soroush received his M.Sc in the Cognitive Machines group and his Sc.B. in computer science from MIT.... institutions and individuals ... come together to understand, debate and act on societal problems._51f1477a-4dd6-11e4-8a3f-3400cd974292Designing media technologies for social engagement and change_51f14856-4dd6-11e4-8a3f-3400cd974292Social SystemsDevelop technologies that analyze social systems, map the public sphere of beliefs, opinions, and events to create information feedback loops that close the gap between public will (constitutions, laws, ordinances) and collective behavior (customs, habits)_51f148ec-4dd6-11e4-8a3f-3400cd9742921Public Sphere AnalyticsDevelop methods and technologies that enable large-scale analysis of content grounded in real-world events, and connections._51f149be-4dd6-11e4-8a3f-3400cd9742921.1Grounded semantics and network analysis that enable large-scale analysis of content (semantics, sentiment) grounded in real-world events, and connections (social graphs, content links) within and across public social media, mass media and other data streams. The aim will be to create a networked, accessible, continuously updated database as a source of public sphere analytics.GoalsBuild tools for institutions and individuals to collaborate openly by debating and setting shared goals, then organizing themselves into sustainable networks capable of achieving social, cultural and political progress_51f14a54-4dd6-11e4-8a3f-3400cd9742922InstitutionsIndividualsInteractions, Goals, Communication & OrganizationDevelop methods and technologies that analyze interaction patterns in relevant social systems, reveal the shared goals and passions buried in the mass of media analytics and help create new forms of public communication and social organization._51f14aea-4dd6-11e4-8a3f-3400cd9742922.1Pattern discovery, data visualization and mobile app technologies that analyze interaction patterns in relevant social systems, reveal the shared goals and passions buried in the mass of media analytics and help create new forms of public communication and social organization.CollaborativesDeploy social machines -- networked human-machine collaboratives -- alongside external partners in real-world situations with transparent, measurable objectives_51f14b8a-4dd6-11e4-8a3f-3400cd9742923We will work with external partners to experiment in areas of public communication and social organization where people and machines collaborate on problems that can’t be solved manually or through automation alone, including:JournalismExperiment with data gathering, analysis, visualization, hypothesis, investigation, interpretation, analysis and storytelling._51f14c2a-4dd6-11e4-8a3f-3400cd9742923.1Journalistic OrganizationsJournalistic organizations, where scaled data gathering, analysis and visualization are tasks ideally fit for machines -- but hypothesis, investigation, interpretation, analysis and storytelling are best left to people Feedback & AccountabilityExperiment with mobile technologies and information feedback loops to create "mutual visibility" among institutions and individuals._51f14cca-4dd6-11e4-8a3f-3400cd9742923.2Social and political reform movements -- on issues such as gender and economic inequality, or political corruption -- where ubiquitous mobile technologies and new information feedback loops can create “mutual visibility” among institutions and individuals -- increasing accountability and serving as force multipliers for change2014-10-06http://socialmachines.media.mit.edu/OwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net