Advancing Wisdom
A Better Future
A common refrain at MIT is that its technology and research goals are aligned around the greater goal to “invent a better future”. The underlying intent is laudable, but it is clear that students and faculty rarely have the time, space, or resources to deeply explore the question — “What is a better future?” What sort of world, in other words, should we be seeking to build, beyond what is technically feasible, or commercially viable?
A Better Future is a multi-year initiative to advance wisdom within the practice of science and engineering by opening space for MIT students, faculty, and staff to step back and ask what kind of future is truly worth building, and what it means to orient research and innovation within questions of ultimate meaning and purpose.
Four Main Components of A Better Future
For-Credit Course: “What is a Better Future?”
Co-taught by Professors Rosalind Picard and Sherry Turkle, as well as Nathan Barczi of the Octet Collaborative, this course explores multiple philosophical and faith traditions to explore ultimate questions, followed by case studies of how to apply such questions within specific areas of science and engineering.
Offered since Spring 2024.
Jeffersonian Dinners
In academic year 2023-24, small groups of select researchers and scholars gathered to discuss where the greatest opportunities and pitfalls exist within contemporary technological advances for human flourishing, and how we might guide the next generation of students in addressing them. These dinners prompted the plans for 2024–25’s scholarly colloquia.
Scholarly Colloquia
During the 2024–25 academic year, Octet is convening scholars to produce interdisciplinary research into the most pressing human challenges facing innovators and policymakers in technology, informed both by the best in scientific research and wisdom from theology, philosophy, and other humanistic disciplines.
Published Articles
In 2025 and beyond, articles in both scholarly journals and popular outlets like The Atlantic and Harper’s will share the outputs of the course and colloquia with a broader audience.
IAP Courses
In January 2025, the Octet Collaborative has prepared four offerings during IAP (Independent Activities Period).
Octet has been offering IAP programming since January 2023.
New for 2025: Awe & Wonder
Music & Neuroscience
(Awe & Wonder Session 1)
New offering for January 2025:
How do creativity and artistry affect our minds? In this session, classical pianist Mia Chung-Yee and neuroscientist Larry Sherman will teach the ordinary and extraordinary ways that music literally rewires our brains.
Beauty and Formation through the Lens of Rembrandt
(Awe & Wonder Session 2)
New offering for January 2025:
For MIT students in 2025, a seventeenth-century Dutch painter may be an unexpected source of wisdom. Dr. Karen E. Bohlin will guide students to glean practical wisdom — everyday tools for discernment and growth — through the lens of Rembrandt’s extraordinary paintings.
Science, Technology, and Ethics in the Real World
MIT is a literally world-changing institution, equipping its students, faculty, and alumni to innovate in science and technology for a better future. But what sort of future should we be building?
In this mini-course, participants explore case studies for thinking about what sorts of technologies we should be building, asking questions of meaning, purpose, and ultimate goals. In addition to learning about both religious and secular ethical frameworks, participants discuss real-world case studies of ethical dilemmas faced by the MIT community. New for 2025, participants will learn about and discuss the complex economic incentives that make ethical choices in industry so difficult, addressing what happens when your hopes and dreams collide with the realities of the job market.
Past topics have included:
What MIT didn’t teach you: an alumni panel exploring everyday ethics and human flourishing in technological industry (with Ted Leung, Ernie Prabhakar, Angie Du, Marcus Gibson)
Climate science (with Dorothy Boorse, Professor of Biology at Gordon College)
Bioethics (with Praveen Sethupathy, Professor of Physiological Genomics at Cornell University)
Artificial Intelligence (with Ehi Nosakhare (MIT PhD ‘18), Senior Data and Applied Science Manager at Microsoft)
First offered January 2023.
Disagreeing Well
A Dialogue Lab providing training in empathic listening and intellectual hospitality, based on the work of the Ideos Institute.
In these polarized times, what does it mean to disagree well? Students participated in a workshop that equipped them with skills of empathic intelligence and enabled them to pursue meaningful dialogue across difference.
This mini-course builds on a curriculum developed by the Ideos Institute, experts in empathic intelligence and producers of the documentary film “Dialogue Lab: America.”
First offered January 2023.