Menu

The MIT Quest for Intelligence

The Science of Intelligence meets the Engineering of Intelligence

Spotlights

collage of a face, robot arm, and geometric forms

News

October 2025 News

An important part of research at MIT's Quest for Intelligence is understanding how people, animals, and machines interact with their surrounding environment. In this issue of our newsletter, we are sharing how and why research in this area happens.Here’s what’s new at the Quest.

CBMM logo

Our Roots

Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines

The Quest for Intelligence is built on the Foundations of CBMM, a multi-institutional NSF Science and Technology Center dedicated to the study of intelligence — how the brain produces intelligent behavior and how we may be able to replicate intelligence in machines.

Robot arm, attached to a table, is selecting and picking up blocks.

Research

Parallel-Planning

Quest Researchers have developed a new machine-learning algorithm for robot task planning that lets robots “think ahead” by evaluating thousands of possible ways to solve a task in parallel and refining them to meet the physical and geometric constraints of the robot and its environment. 

computer generated scene including purple grains (on left) and a purple block (on right)

Research

Things vs. Stuff

Researchers have recently determined that specific regions of the brain are involved in distinguishing between “things” and “stuff” — “Things” are solid, countable objects like apples, and “stuff” is material that is not countable, like liquids.

collage of a face, robot arm, and geometric forms

News

October 2025 News

An important part of research at MIT's Quest for Intelligence is understanding how people, animals, and machines interact with their surrounding environment. In this issue of our newsletter, we are sharing how and why research in this area happens.Here’s what’s new at the Quest.

CBMM logo

Our Roots

Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines

The Quest for Intelligence is built on the Foundations of CBMM, a multi-institutional NSF Science and Technology Center dedicated to the study of intelligence — how the brain produces intelligent behavior and how we may be able to replicate intelligence in machines.

Robot arm, attached to a table, is selecting and picking up blocks.

Research

Parallel-Planning

Quest Researchers have developed a new machine-learning algorithm for robot task planning that lets robots “think ahead” by evaluating thousands of possible ways to solve a task in parallel and refining them to meet the physical and geometric constraints of the robot and its environment. 

computer generated scene including purple grains (on left) and a purple block (on right)

Research

Things vs. Stuff

Researchers have recently determined that specific regions of the brain are involved in distinguishing between “things” and “stuff” — “Things” are solid, countable objects like apples, and “stuff” is material that is not countable, like liquids.

    Missions + Platforms

    To understand intelligence, the Quest fosters and funds research Missions, which are supported by Platforms.

    • Intelligence Observatory

      The Intelligence Observatory is a human behavioral testing and benchmarking platform. Read More

    • The Development of Intelligent Minds

      This mission aims to understand how children grasp new concepts and build upon layers of concepts to reach an understanding of the world. Read More

    • Embodied Intelligence

      The Embodied Intelligence mission addresses how we perceive the world around us and integrate this information to plan and complete tasks. Read More

    • Brain-Score

      The Brain-Score platform aims to yield accurate, machine-executable computational models of how the brain gives rise to the mind. Read More

    • Language

      The Language mission aims to understand the relationship between language and human intelligence. Read More

    • Perceptual Intelligence

      The Perceptual Intelligence mission aims  to produce machine executable models of human visual intelligence. Read More

    • Scaling Inference

      The Scaling Inference team pursues an alternate scaling route for AI systems and for NI models, based on inference in probabilistic programs. Read More

    See all Missions + Platforms »

    News

    • Recent news from the MIT Quest for Intelligence: October 2025

      An important part of research at MIT's Quest for Intelligence is understanding how people, animals, and machines interact with their surrounding environment. In this issue of our newsletter, we are sharing how and why research in this area happens.

    • UROP Spotlight: Computational Basis of Everyday Action Planning

      To explore the way humans complete simple tasks, Beckett Roberge '28 spent a UROP in the Kanwisher Lab creating a virtual reality simulation of catching a ball. He is now working with Aryan Zoroufi on tracking subjects' movements and comparing them to how different computational techniques catch the ball in the same simulation.

    • 3Q with Nick Roy

      Nick Roy's research interests in AI, machine learning, human-computer interaction, and robotics drew him to the Embodied Intelligence Mission.

    See all news »