Twitter is putting its money where its virtual mouth is, contributing $10 million to create the Laboratory for Social Machines (LSM) at MIT.
The school’s Media Lab said the new program is backed by a five-year commitment from Twitter, which will provide access to real-time public messages and an archive of every tweet—dating back to Jack Dorsey’s first.
LSM will develop new technologies to better distinguish patterns across mass and social medias, data streams, and digital content.
“The Laboratory of Social Machines will experiment in areas of public communication and social organization where humans and machines collaborate on problems that can’t be solved manually or through automation alone,” said Deb Roy
As part of the new programme, Twitter will provide full access to its real-time, public stream of tweets, as well as the archive of every tweet dating back to the first. The new initiative will focus on the development of new technologies to make sense of semantic and social patterns across the broad span of public mass media, social media, data streams, and digital content. Pattern discovery and data visualization will be explored to show interaction patterns and shared interests in relevant social systems, while collaborative tools and mobile apps will be developed to enable new forms of public communication and social organization. A main goal for the LSM will be to create new platforms for both individuals and institutions to identify, discuss, and act on pressing societal problems.
