Welcome remarks for MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC) Kick-off

Thank you, Keeril – and good afternoon, everybody! I’m thrilled that so many of you were able to join us!

I want to start by quickly thanking everyone who is part of this afternoon’s program – from our exceptional faculty speakers to our student performers to our keynote conversationalists, Linda Henry and Min Jin Lee. Thank you! We’re so grateful that you could be part of this celebration!

Our specific purpose today is to launch a new initiative that we’re calling the MIT Human Insight Collaborative, or, for short, “MITHIC.”

But more broadly, we’re also here to celebrate the tremendous strength and importance of MIT's programs in the humanities, arts and social sciences. 

Now, practically speaking, MITHIC is designed to help our scholars in these human-centered disciplines “go big,” in three ways. MITHIC will give them the resources to pursue their most innovative ideas within their discipline. It will create opportunities for them to collaborate with colleagues outside their field, to advance knowledge and solve important problems, and it will encourage and enable them to explore fresh approaches to teaching our students. Those practical outcomes are very important! 

And at the same time, philosophically, MITHIC also serves as a bold endorsement. It’s an expression of how deeply we value the broad family of scholarly and artistic practices that deepen our understanding of human beings. Of human behavior, human cultures, human languages. Human triumphs and blunders. Human values, motives and aspirations. Of the societies humans build and the trade they conduct. Of the stories they tell, the art they create, the music they compose. Of the creeds and philosophies they live by – or fail to. Of how humans – in different times and settings – understand their relationship to nature, to the universe, to each other, to the truth. 

Of these, and all the things that make us human.

Exploring, analyzing, appreciating and contributing to these fundamental aspects of human experience, and helping our students gain the skills to do the same: As all of us know, from our own lives, this work is profoundly meaningful and worthy, in itself!

And MITHIC aims to bring those human-centered themes to the center of the conversation at MIT.

Now, because I lead an institution where even our sweatshirts boldly declare our enthusiasm for “Technology,” I should be clear that we do – and we must – also value these human-centered fields for another reason. 

I want to quote a passage from a 2023 book called Power and Progress: Our 1,000-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity. 

It’s the product of an incredibly fruitful collaboration between two eminent faculty members: Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu, from our Department of Economics and Professor Simon Johnson of MIT Sloan. Two weeks ago, along with a colleague from the University of Chicago, Daron and Simon were awarded the economics Nobel.

And I am absolutely delighted that both of them are with us here today to celebrate the launch of MITHIC! Daron, Simon – would you stand for just a moment, for this home-town crowd?

Through extensive studies – across centuries and including societies around the world – the work that Simon and Daron have done together demonstrates just how deeply a nation’s economic growth and prosperity depend on healthy, inclusive societal institutions, including the rule of law.

In Power and Progress, they also reached a conclusion with specific import for all of us at MIT. As they put it:

“History and contemporary evidence make one thing abundantly clear: There is nothing automatic about new technologies bringing widespread prosperity. Whether they do or not is an economic…social… and political choice.”

Which brings me back to MITHIC. 

Because there may never have been a more important time for society to make humane choices about new technologies.

MITHIC will serve in part to support SHASS faculty in their frontier work as scholars and artists and teachers. 

But it is also designed to inspire and enable unexpected collaborations between SHASS faculty and colleagues in other disciplines here, collaborations that tap the rich wisdom of these human-centered fields to help define, devise and accelerate human-centered solutions to the great global challenges of our time – challenges that technology alone can never solve. The societal ravages of global warming, famine and pandemic disease. The pressures of an aging population. The fragility of democracy. The proper guardrails for advanced life-science technologies, from CRISPR to synthetic biology. The risks and opportunities of generative AI – and much more.

In short, now as always, we are counting on our colleagues in the humanities, arts and social sciences to help us ask better questions, to arrive at better answers and to prepare our students to explore, synthesize, savor, shape and thrive in the future that will soon be theirs. 

MITHIC is a key that was purpose-made to unlock just that potential. 

I want to express my gratitude to Tia Giurleo and the entire team that brought this event to life; to Charlene and Derry Kabcenell, John and Cindy Reed, Ray Stata, and Prabha Kannan and Amar Kendale – the visionary donors whose generosity made MITHIC possible; and to the three faculty leaders who envisioned and created MITHIC:SHASS Dean Agustin Rayo, Engineering Dean and Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer Anantha Chandrakasan, and SHASS Associate Dean and MITHIC’s founding faculty lead, Keeril Makan.

And I’m delighted to join them in opening this new door with all of you today.

Thank you!