Overview: As the global population ages, cognitive decline and social isolation pose significant challenges to independent living and well-being. In this keynote, Dr. Pattie Maes presents a series of innovative research initiatives from the MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces group that explore how artificial intelligence (AI) and wearable technologies can support healthy aging. Through participatory design workshops with older adults (ages 70–94), her team identified key areas of need, including memory support, communication assistance, health monitoring, and social connection. Prototypes such as MemPal, a wearable memory assistant using multimodal AI to track daily activities and locate lost objects, and a voice-based memory augmentation system were developed and tested in real-world settings. Additional systems include real-time speech simplification tools and AI-enhanced social agents designed to reduce loneliness by promoting and supporting human relationships. These technologies leverage generative AI and personalized user models to provide context-aware, emotionally intelligent assistance. Early trials demonstrate promising outcomes in usability, memory support, and emotional well-being. This work highlights the transformative potential of AI-powered wearables to enhance autonomy, safety, and quality of life for older adults.
Pattie Maes, PhD, Germeshausen Professor at MIT Media Lab
About the Speaker: Pattie Maes is the Germeshausen Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab. She runs the Fluid Interfaces research group, which does research at the intersection of Human Computer Interaction and Artificial Intelligence with a focus on applications in health, wellbeing and learning. Maes is also a faculty member in MIT’s center for Neuro-Biological Engineering. She is particularly interested in the topic of cognitive enhancement, or how wearable, immersive and brain-computer interface systems can actively assist people with issues such as memory, attention, learning, decision making, communication, wellbeing, and sleep.
Maes is the editor of four books, and is an editorial board member and reviewer for numerous professional journals and conferences. She has received several awards: Netguru selected her for “Hidden Heroes: the people who shaped technology (2022), Time Magazine has included several of her designs in its annual list of inventions of the year; AAAI gave her the “classic paper 2012” prize, awarded to the most influential AI paper of the year, Fast Company named her one of 50 most influential designers (2011); Newsweek picked her as one of the “100 Americans to watch for” in the year 2000; TIME Digital selected her as a member of the “Cyber Elite,” the top 50 technological pioneers of the high-tech world; the World Economic Forum honored her with the title “Global Leader for Tomorrow”; Ars Electronica awarded her the 1995 World Wide Web category prize; and in 2000 she was recognized with the “Lifetime Achievement Award” by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council. She also received honorary doctorates from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and Open Universiteit, Netherlands, and has given several TED talks.
In addition to her academic endeavors, Maes has been an active entrepreneur as co-founder of several venture-backed companies, including Firefly Networks (sold to Microsoft), Open Ratings (sold to Dun & Bradstreet) and Tulip Co (privately held). She is an advisor to several early stage companies, including Earable, Inc, and Spatial, Inc. Prior to joining the Media Lab, Maes was a visiting professor and a research scientist at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. She holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a PhD in artificial intelligence from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium.
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattie_Maes
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattie-maes-67276273/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=r81Ss1cAAAAJ&hl=en