The Science of Intelligence meets the Engineering of Intelligence

The MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence is a community of scientists, engineers, faculty, students, staff, and supporters that aim to understand intelligence – how brains produce it and how it can be replicated in artificial systems.  Together, we approach intelligence as a single grand challenge requiring the organized, collaborative efforts of science, engineering, the humanities, and beyond.  To achieve this vision, scientific theories of natural intelligence must be developed, computational models must be created, and these models must be compared against the capabilities and neural mechanisms of natural intelligence and tested on real-world problems. 

Working across the whole of MIT and with the world at large, the Quest capitalizes on MIT’s long history of leadership at the boundary of natural and machine intelligence. It is uniquely positioned to advance the development of novel intelligent systems and associated tools and technologies, which will yield countless societal benefits and applications in numerous fields. The Quest’s approach does not merely require a crossing of boundaries, but a true integration across disciplines. While recent progress illustrates the mutual benefit of studying natural intelligence and engineered intelligent systems, we believe transformative advances in intelligence require a new approach that more closely integrates the science of natural intelligence with the engineering and applications of artificial intelligence.