What experts are watching in 2024 related to artificial intelligence

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Artificial intelligence was called “the buzzword of 2023” by CNN and referenced by countless media reports. The technology became increasingly visible in society as business leaders used it to restructure workplaces, people chose it as their romantic partners, criminals used it to cloud the public’s sense of reality and more. AI has enabled striking scientific and technological breakthroughs for previously intractable problems. At UC Berkeley, researchers developed AI-powered tools that helped a paralyzed woman speak with a digital avatar and informed policymakers for a global plastics treaty negotiation. They’re using AI to speed up the discovery of materials that could stem the impacts of climate change and developing platforms to revolutionize healthcare. And they’re developing methods to assess whether AI chatbots are trustworthy. We asked experts what areas or issues they’re watching related to artificial intelligence this year and where they anticipate change. Here’s what they shared with us.

Kristen Williams joins CDSS as Assistant Dean and ED of Individual Giving

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Kristen Williams has been selected as assistant dean for development and external relations and executive director of individual giving at UC Berkeley’s College of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS). She started in the new role on Jan. 3. Williams is a successful fundraising professional with nearly 20 years of experience at Berkeley, having served as assistant dean for external relations most recently at the School of Information.

Chemist Omar Yaghi wins Solvay Prize for climate, materials breakthroughs

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UC Berkeley’s Omar Yaghi has been awarded the renowned Science for the Future Ernest Solvay Prize by Syensqo. The award honors chemistry leaders whose discoveries are shaping the future of the field and humanity. Yaghi is being recognized for pioneering reticular materials that can help combat the impacts of climate change, Syensqo announced. The ultra porous materials – known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs) – are unlocking groundbreaking solutions for threats like water scarcity, air pollution and energy production. “Omar Yaghi is a true explorer and his work is likely to have a tremendous impact in advancing humanity,” said Ilham Kadri, chief executive officer of Syensqo.

Computer science, data science, statistics majors move to new college

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The computer science, data science and statistics undergraduate majors leading to Bachelor of Arts degrees are now administered by UC Berkeley’s first new college in more than 50 years. Following university approval in December, the College of Letters & Science transferred these majors and a statistics minor to the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society. The new college will oversee these programs as part of its mission to help develop tomorrow’s diverse, knowledgeable and ethical data leaders. "Students demanded the creation of this college," said Deborah Nolan, the college’s associate dean of students. “The transfer of the major programs is a natural next step, bringing students into the CDSS home.”

Small solar sails could be the next ‘giant leap’ for interplanetary space exploration

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Nearly 70 years after the launch of the first satellite, we still have more questions than answers about space. But a team of Berkeley researchers is on a mission to change this with a proposal to build a fleet of low-cost, autonomous spacecraft, each weighing only 10 grams and propelled by nothing more than the pressure of solar radiation. These miniaturized solar sails could potentially visit thousands of near-Earth asteroids and comets, capturing high-resolution images and collecting samples. Led by Kristofer Pister, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, the researchers seek to leverage advancements in micro-scale technology to make interplanetary space exploration more cost-effective and accessible — and to accelerate new discoveries about our inner solar system. They describe their work, the Berkeley Low-cost Interplanetary Solar Sail (BLISS) project, in a study published in the journal Acta Astronautica. The BLISS project brings together researchers from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and the Department of Mechanical Engineering, as well as the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center and the Space Sciences Laboratory.

Cell types in the eye have ancient evolutionary origins

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Karthik Shekhar and his colleagues raised a few eyebrows as they collected cow and pig eyes from Boston butchers, but those eyes — eventually from 17 separate species, including humans — are providing insights into the evolution of the vertebrate retina and could lead to better animal models for human eye diseases. The retina is a miniature computer containing diverse types of cells that collectively process visual information before transmitting it to the rest of the brain. In a comparative analysis across animals of the many cell types in the retina — mice alone have 130 types of cells in the retina, as Shekhar’s previous studies have shown — the researchers concluded that most cell types have an ancient evolutionary history. These cell types, distinguished by their differences at the molecular level, give clues to their functions and how they participate in building our visual world.

Dean’s Fund supports data science innovation that benefits society

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UC Berkeley’s first new college in more than 50 years has launched a fund to support innovation in computing, data science and statistics that will benefit society. Contributions secured by the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS) Dean’s Innovation Fund will advance data science education and research in line with the vision of Jennifer Chayes, dean of the new college. The college’s mission is to educate the next generation of ethical, excellent data leaders; to execute cutting-edge research; to found new, interdisciplinary fields at the interface of computing, data science and statistics with other disciplines; and to harness these efforts to help address society’s most pressing challenges like climate change and healthcare.

Berkeley launches Agile Metabolic Health and open platforms initiative

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Agile Metabolic Health aims to revolutionize the patient experience for millions of people with diabetes, catalyzing a new frontier of open-source, data-driven personalized healthcare. This initial project could help the more than 38 million Americans who are diagnosed with diabetes. But the college’s vision is much bigger. It aims to do much more than improve diabetes care. What the college is building in partnership with developers from Project Jupyter, the 2i2c organization and The Commons Project is a platform to revolutionize the entire health ecosystem.

Making the grade: EECS professors develop ‘A’s for All’ pilot

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There’s a quote attributed to Stephen McCranie that makes the rounds on social media every now and then: “The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” The idea is that the learning process demands failure. That’s what the grading system known as “mastery learning” seeks to facilitate: a process that gives students more room to learn from their mistakes. Students advance through topics only after they master the material for each one, with the aim of achieving thorough proficiency in the subject. Armando Fox and Dan Garcia, professors of electrical engineering and computer sciences (EECS), are behind UC Berkeley’s pilot run, an endeavor they’ve dubbed “A’s for All (as Time and Interest Allow).” “I'm not giving away free A’s,” Garcia said. “The whole point of what I'm doing is not grade inflation. It's exactly the opposite: I'm holding the A bar locked.”

Data Science Discovery program helps turn heat wave theory into algorithm

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A heat wave two years ago in the Pacific Northwest made headlines, breaking temperature records and earning the description “historic and dangerous” by the National Weather Service. It made two UC Berkeley scientists ask: How hot could it possibly get? They answered the question with a new theory: how hot the surface temperature can get is linked to how hot it is five or six kilometers above the surface. With the help of a student from Berkeley’s Data Science Discovery Program, the researchers are turning their theory into an effective algorithm to help better predict these extreme heat events and protect the public.