MIT's 10-Year Reading Program Goes Fiction to Fight AI Burnout

In a world racing toward artificial intelligence, one of the world's top tech universities just decided its community needs more novels.

MIT is reimagining MIT Reads, its 10-year-old campus reading program, with a new mission for the AI age. Instead of selecting nonfiction titles, the program will now focus on fiction and memoir to help students, faculty, and staff explore what it means to be human when technology is reshaping everything around us.

"At MIT, we spend a great deal of time on imagining and building for the future," says MIT Libraries Director Chris Bourg. "Reading fiction prompts us to think about how what we build might change us."

The timing couldn't be more intentional. A recent MIT committee report on AI in education called for stronger social connections across campus. The report specifically highlighted MIT Reads as a way to "engage many more people across campus in conversation about shared norms and why community matters."

For the program's relaunch this fall, MIT President Sally Kornbluth selected "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang. The bestselling 2019 collection features thought-provoking short stories about robots, time travel, and alternate universes while grappling with identity, free will, and technology's impact on humanity.

"Ted Chiang offered an uncanny preview of many issues we're grappling with now concerning technology, particularly the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence," Kornbluth explains.

The Ripple Effect

MIT Reads reaches far beyond campus. Author talks are open to the public and streamed online, with videos viewed more than 5,000 times. The program includes panel discussions and small-group conversations led by library staff, creating space for reflection in an increasingly fast-paced world.

This fall, first-year students in the Reading Great Books with Compass seminar will also tackle "Exhalation" as part of an initiative designed to help students navigate big questions about technology and humanity.

"MIT is not alone in grappling with these big questions around technology and its relationship with humanity," Bourg adds. "We invite readers everywhere to join us."

Since launching in 2016, MIT Reads was designed to foster empathy, understanding, and belonging within the campus community. Now, as AI tools become commonplace in classrooms and labs, the program is doubling down on what makes us distinctly human: our ability to connect through stories.

In the race to build tomorrow's technology, MIT is making sure its community remembers to imagine the kind of future worth building.