Following is a list of things BruinTechs should know and share with others:
1. Announcement/Request for Feedback: 30-Day Review Period for BruinTech By-Laws | Proposed Changes
The BruinTech Executive Board is proposing updates to the Duties section of the BruinTech By-Laws Article III Executive Board. The proposed revisions modernize the roles and clarify the duties of elected board members, as well as encourage valuable skill development. A few notable changes include:
Refinement of the President-Elect’s duties to include the designated role of BruinTech Representative to the IT Strategic Partners.
Restructuring of “Historian” into a more robust role. The new role, titled “Vice President for Content Strategy”, creates and maintains meaningful content that supports continuity, institutional knowledge, and the BruinTech mission.
Renaming of “Vice President for Information Systems” to “Vice President for Technology Support” and revision to reflect applicable duties.
Renaming of “Vice President for Strategic Communications” to “Vice President for Marketing Communications” and revision to reflect applicable duties.
In accordance with BruinTech By-Laws Article IX Amendments, “The details of the proposed amendments or actions must be published to the membership at large not less than thirty (30) days prior to the time at which the vote will be taken.” We encourage you to review the proposed updated roles and duties (current roles and duties for reference) by Wednesday, August 17, 2022.
To submit comments or questions, please email bruintech@ucla.edu.
Please note, the 2022-23 BruinTech Executive Board election cycle starts in late August. We hope these changes encourage you to submit nominations and participate in the upcoming election!
2. Amazon Admits Giving Ring Camera Footage to Police Without a Warrant or Consent
Ring, Amazon's perennially controversial and police-friendly surveillance subsidiary, has long defended its cozy relationship with law enforcement by pointing out that cops can only get access to a camera owner’s recordings with their express permission or a court order. But in response to recent questions from Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the company stated that it has provided police with user footage 11 times this year alone without either. Continue reading.
3. Event: In conversation with Jeremy Howard - upskilling to better navigate AI
Date and time
Wed., 3 August 2022
10:30 am – 11:30 am AEST
Like many other sectors, the library, archives and museums community are seeing the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning in their work, but recognising the upskilling will be necessary before we can realise that potential.
4. Chess robot grabs and breaks finger of seven-year-old opponent
Played by humans, chess is a game of strategic thinking, calm concentration and patient intellectual endeavour. Violence does not usually come into it. The same, it seems, cannot always be said of machines.
Last week, according to Russian media outlets, a chess-playing robot, apparently unsettled by the quick responses of a seven-year-old boy, unceremoniously grabbed and broke his finger during a match at the Moscow Open.
“The robot broke the child’s finger,” Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, told the TASS news agency after the incident, adding that the machine had played many previous exhibitions without upset. “This is of course bad.” Continue reading.
5. Minecraft needs to invest in more hate moderation, ADL study finds
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is recommending that Minecraft invest in its content moderation efforts and in creating more robust community guidelines after the organization studied three months of anonymized chat data from the game. The study, which was conducted in collaboration with Take This, the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and GamerSafer, focused specifically on how Minecraft deals with hate speech.
The researchers chose Minecraft not just because it’s popular (though it certainly is, with 141 million active players) but also because, as the ADL puts it, the “decentralized, player-run nature of Minecraft Java edition provides a novel opportunity to assess hate and harassment in gaming spaces.” And though the ADL’s findings are specific to Minecraft, the recommendations do resonate across most online spaces. Continue reading.
