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And what part is rigged? In the case of this food printer, sure I suppose it should be able to actually do what it claims is its breakthrough. But if I make a p

And what part is rigged? In the case of this food printer, sure I suppose it should be able to actually do what it claims is its breakthrough. But if I make a prototype of, say, a wallet that gives you haptic feedback to reflect your money moving digitally, is it rigged if it’s not currently in a manufacturable form, tethered to the lab somehow? No, because it was designed to 1) demonstrate a new user interface, and 2) spark conversation about the effects of dematerializing currency. Sometimes missed in talk of what research deserves to be funded, is that a valuable function of the Media Lab is to conduct the flow of ideas from science fiction to reality. And the projects fall all along that spectrum.

prairiecat 7y ago
That's a rather slippery slope... While I do agree that producing thought-provoking technical demos has some (perhaps considerable) merit, the Media Lab still presents themselves as a research institute, not some creative agency making conceptual mockups/videos. When something comes out of the Media Lab (or any other MIT-affiliated organization) the expectation will be that even if the ideas may not be workable immediately, the biggest technical/scientific hurdles have been overcome, i.e., they're not pure science fiction. MIT has built up reputation and goodwill so the public gives them benefit of the doubt. Presenting half-baked, unworkable demos as research is to take advantage of (and exhaust) that goodwill, painstakingly cultivated over decades by the entire MIT community.