How AI Fails Us, and How Economics Can Help

Combining the field of economics with statistics and computer science, Michael Jordan’s lecture aims to provide a broader conceptual foundation for emerging real-world artificial intelligence systems.

EPIC Data Lab: Harnessing the Power of Computer Science to Help Society

Building data tools that allow people without programming backgrounds to benefit from the latest computer science advances, the EPIC Data Lab – short for Effective Programming, Interaction, and Computation with Data, a new UC Berkeley Lab, is collaborating with end-users like public defenders to understand what important messy data challenges exist in their fields.

Machine Translation Could Make English-Only Science Accessible to All

Machine learning using artificial intelligence has improved computer translation over the past decade, but scientific articles employing specialized jargon are still a challenge for machine translation. Nevertheless, scientists should prioritize translating articles into multiple languages to provide an equitable landscape for budding scientists worldwide, UC Berkeley researchers argue.

Just for You

In a study presented at the 2022 International Conference on Machine Learning, a UC Berkeley-led research team revealed that certain recommender systems try to manipulate user preferences, beliefs, mood and psychological state

New UC Berkeley Initiative Uses AI Research to Solve Climate Problems

For years, UC Berkeley snow hydrologist Manuela Girotto has combined disparate remote sensing datasets from satellites into models to understand snow as a water resource. In an era of extreme drought and climate change, her work is increasingly urgent. A recent rapid expansion of available observations from space could unlock important insights. But integrating that amount of data into researchers’ existing models is difficult. So when Berkeley computer science doctoral candidate Colorado Reed reached out asking how artificial intelligence could help, she saw an opportunity.

UC Berkeley Launches Sky Computing Lab to Revolutionize the Cloud Industry

UC Berkeley formally launched this week The Sky Computing Lab aimed at establishing a two-sided market mediated by services that identify and harness for users the best combination of compatible clouds for their needs and building a new backbone for interconnected cloud computing, a milestone that would revolutionize the industry.

‘Off Label’ Use of Imaging Databases Could Lead to Bias in AI Algorithms, Study Finds

Significant advances in artificial intelligence (AI) over the past decade have relied upon extensive training of algorithms using massive, open-source databases. But when such datasets are used “off label” and applied in unintended ways, the results are subject to machine learning bias that compromises the integrity of the AI algorithm, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Texas at Austin.

HYPPO: Leveraging Prediction Uncertainty to Optimize Deep Learning Models for Science

Leveraging support from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), a team of researchers in the Computing Sciences Area has developed a new software tool for conducting hyperparameter optimization (HPO) of deep neural networks while taking into account the prediction uncertainty that arises from using stochastic optimizers for training the models.

New Kavli Center at UC Berkeley to Foster Ethics, Engagement in Science

UC Berkeley announced that the campus will be home to a new Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public, which, alongside a second center at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, will connect scientists, ethicists, social scientists, science communicators and the public in necessary and intentional discussions about the potential impacts of scientific discoveries.

Leaping Squirrels! Parkour Is One of Their Many Feats of Agility

Videos of squirrels leaping from bendy branches across impossibly large gaps, parkouring off walls, scrambling to recover from tricky landings are not just more YouTube content documenting the antics of squirrels. Researchers at UC Berkeley are capturing video of squirrels as part of their research to understand the split-second decisions squirrels make to elude deadly predators, research that could help with development of robots with better agility and control.

UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech and USC Launch New National AI Research Institute

The National Science Foundation has awarded $20 million over five years to the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Southern California to establish the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute for Advances in Optimization. The award is among 11 new National AI Research Institutes announced today by NSF.

A Machine Learning Breakthrough Uses Satellite Images to Improve Lives

More than 700 imaging satellites are orbiting the earth, and every day they beam vast oceans of information to databases on the ground. There’s just one problem: Only those with considerable wealth and expertise can access it. Now, a UC Berkeley team has devised a machine learning system to tap the problem-solving potential of satellite imaging that could bring access and analytical power to researchers and governments worldwide.

Computing and Data Sciences Improve What We Know About Wildfires and How to Fight Them

Our understanding, planning, and response to wildfires benefit from connections with data and computing sciences. Recent developments in machine learning and simulations can help first responders detect fires earlier, predict fires’ paths and limit blazes quickly. Through collaborations with practitioners in other fields like microbiology and forest management, these tools are answering previously intractable questions about fires that can inform policy and practice. 

New AI Strategy Enables Robots to Rapidly Adapt to Real World Environments

Delivery services may be able to overcome snow, rain, heat and the gloom of night, but a new class of legged robots is not far behind. Artificial intelligence algorithms developed by a team of researchers from UC Berkeley, Facebook and Carnegie Mellon University are equipping legged robots with an enhanced ability to adapt to and navigate unfamiliar terrain in real time.

‘Eye in the Sky’ Sensors Reduce Stress of In-Home Dementia Care

People caring around the clock for a parent, spouse or other loved one with dementia are at a high risk for clinical anxiety, depression, social isolation and even suicidal ideation, according to longitudinal research from UC Berkeley. But thanks to a blend of artificial intelligence (AI) and behavioral science, relief may be on the horizon.

Envisioning Safer Cities With AI

A team of researchers from the NSF NHERI SimCenter, a computational modeling and simulation center for the natural hazards engineering community based at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a suite of tools called BRAILS — Building Recognition using AI at Large-Scale — that can automatically identify characteristics of buildings in a city and even detect the risks that a city's structures would face in an earthquake, hurricane, or tsunami. ,b>Charles (Chaofeng) Wang, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and the lead developer of BRAILS, says the project grew out of a need to quickly and reliably characterize the structures in a city.

The Robot Surgeon Will See You Now

UC Berkeley postdoctoral researcher Dr. Danyal Fer and his fellow researchers hope to advance the state of the art of robotic surgery. Automated robots in testing situations can meet or exceed a human in dexterity, precision and speed, according to a new research paper from the Berkeley team. The Berkeley team decided to build a new neural network that analyzed the robot's mistakes and learned how much precision it was losing with each passing day. "It learns how the robot's joints evolve over time," said Brijen Thananjeyan, a doctoral student on the team.

Light Unbound: Data Limits Could Vanish With New Optical Antennas

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found a new way to harness properties of light waves that can radically increase the amount of data they carry. They demonstrated the emission of discrete twisting laser beams from antennas made up of concentric rings roughly equal to the diameter of a human hair, small enough to be placed on computer chips.

New Algorithms Could Reduce Racial Disparity

Researchers trying to improve health care with artificial intelligence usually subject their algorithms to a form of machine med school. Software learns from doctors by digesting thousands or millions of x-rays or other data labeled by expert humans until it can accurately flag suspect moles or lungs showing signs of COVID-19 by itself. A study published this month took a different approach—training algorithms to read knee x-rays for arthritis by using patients as the AI arbiters of truth instead of doctors. The results revealed that radiologists may have literal blind spots when it comes to reading Black patients' x-rays. Ziad Obermeyer, an author of the study and a professor at the University of California Berkeley's School of Public Health, was inspired to use AI to probe what radiologists weren't seeing by a medical puzzle.
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