The MIT Media Lab has announced a five-year, $10 million commitment from Twitter to create a laboratory dedicated to developing collaborative technologies to address complex social problems.

With full access to Twitter's real-time stream and archive of tweets, the Laboratory for Social Machines will create a networked, continuously updated database of public mass media, social media, data streams, and digital content that enables large-scale analysis of content and connections. Among other things, the lab will develop pattern discovery, data visualization, and mobile app technologies that analyze patterns of interaction in social systems, reveal shared goals and passions buried in the mass of media analytics, and create new platforms for individuals and institutions to identify, discuss, and address pressing social problems.

The lab also will work with external partners to tackle problems in areas such as journalism and social and political reform where mobile technologies and feedback loops can help increase accountability and serve as force multipliers.  

"The Laboratory for 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, Twitter's chief media scientist and an associate professor at the MIT Media Lab who will lead the new initiative. "Social feedback loops based on analysis of public media and data can be an effective catalyst for increasing accountability and transparency — creating mutual visibility among institutions and individuals."