How Pitt is Preparing for the Spread of the Coronavirus; Pitt Wire, February 27, 2020

Pitt Wire; How Pitt is Preparing for the Spread of the Coronavirus

"The University of Pittsburgh continues to monitor the spread of the coronavirus disease, COVID-19, and is taking steps to respond to community needs. As of Feb. 27, no cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Pennsylvania. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated that the individual immediate health risk to those in the United States is currently low, communities should prepare for the coronavirus to spread. 

Keeping our community informed

Since the emergence of the virus in December 2019, campus health and public safety leaders have coordinated closely with the Allegheny County Health Department and Pennsylvania Department of Health and are following guidance from the CDC and World Health Organization.
Pitt encourages members of the University community to visit the Public Safety and Emergency Management website, which remains a centralized and reliable source for information on this issue. “Knowing where to find reliable information is important for community members,” said Molly Stitt-Fischer, the University’s biosafety officer. “As the health and scientific communities learn more as the situation continues to change very quickly, access to the most current guidance is critical.”

Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images Into Public Domain; Smithsonian Magazine, February 25, 2020

Katherine J. Wu , Smithsonian Magazine; Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images Into Public Domain

"For the first time in its 174-year history, the Smithsonian has released 2.8 million high-resolution two- and three-dimensional images from across its collections onto an open access online platform for patrons to peruse and download free of charge. Featuring data and material from all 19 Smithsonian museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives and the National Zoo, the new digital depot encourages the public to not just view its contents, but use, reuse and transform them into just about anything they choose—be it a postcard, a beer koozie or a pair of bootie shorts.

And this gargantuan data dump is just the beginning. Throughout the rest of 2020, the Smithsonian will be rolling out another 200,000 or so images, with more to come as the Institution continues to digitize its collection of 155 million items and counting...

The database’s launch also marks the latest victory for a growing global effort to migrate museum collections into the public domain. Nearly 200 other institutions worldwide—including Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago—have made similar moves to digitize and liberate their masterworks in recent years. But the scale of the Smithsonian’s release is “unprecedented” in both depth and breadth, says Simon Tanner, an expert in digital cultural heritage at King’s College London.

Spanning the arts and humanities to science and engineering, the release compiles artifacts, specimens and datasets from an array of fields onto a single online platform."

Your DNA is a valuable asset, so why give it to ancestry websites for free?; The Guardian, February 16, 2020

Laura Spinney, The Guardian; Your DNA is a valuable asset, so why give it to ancestry websites for free?

"The announcement by 23andMe, a company that sells home DNA testing kits, that it has sold the rights to a promising new anti-inflammatory drug to a Spanish pharmaceutical company is cause for celebration. The collected health data of 23andMe’s millions of customers have potentially produced a medical advance – the first of its kind. But a few weeks later the same company announced that it was laying off workers amid a shrinking market that its CEO put down to the public’s concerns about privacy.

These two developments are linked, because the most intimate data we can provide about ourselves – our genetic make-up – is already being harvested for ends we aren’t aware of and can’t always control. Some of them, such as better medicines, are desirable, but some of them should worry us...

These are the privacy concerns that may be behind layoffs, not only at 23andMe, but also at other DTC companies, and that we need to resolve urgently to avoid the pitfalls of genetic testingwhile [sic] realising its undoubted promise. In the meantime, we should all start reading the small print."

Europe plans to strictly regulate high-risk AI technology; Science, February 19, 2020

Nicholas Wallace, Science; Europe plans to strictly regulate high-risk AI technology

"The European Commission today unveiled its plan to strictly regulate artificial intelligence (AI), distinguishing itself from more freewheeling approaches to the technology in the United States and China.

The commission will draft new laws—including a ban on “black box” AI systems that humans can’t interpret—to govern high-risk uses of the technology, such as in medical devices and self-driving cars. Although the regulations would be broader and stricter than any previous EU rules, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at a press conference today announcing the plan that the goal is to promote “trust, not fear.” The plan also includes measures to update the European Union’s 2018 AI strategy and pump billions into R&D over the next decade.

The proposals are not final: Over the next 12 weeks, experts, lobby groups, and the public can weigh in on the plan before the work of drafting concrete laws begins in earnest. Any final regulation will need to be approved by the European Parliament and national governments, which is unlikely to happen this year."

Walter Shaub Wants You To Fight For An Ethical Democracy; WBUR On Point, February 18, 2020

WBUR, On Point;

Walter Shaub Wants You To Fight For An Ethical Democracy

"For decades, Walter Shaub advised presidential candidates about transparency, ethics and how to avoid conflicts of interest. We talk to Shaub about how he ran the Office of Government Ethics and the future of ethics in government."

Coronavirus: The global race to patent a remedy; The Mercury News, February 13, 2020

Lisa M. Krieger, The Mercury News; Coronavirus: The global race to patent a remedy

"As a lethal coronavirus triggers a humanitarian crisis in the world’s most populous nation, who owns the rights to a potential cure?

The Bay Area’s pharmaceutical powerhouse Gilead Sciences is first in line for a Chinese patent for its drug called Remdesivir, which shows promise against the broad family of coronaviruses.

But now a team of Chinese scientists say they’ve improved and targeted its use — and, in a startling move, have also filed for a patent...

“Each side wants to be the entity that came up with the treatment for coronavirus,” said Jacob Sherkow, professor of law at the Innovation Center for Law and Technology at New York Law School. “This is not a knockoff of a Louis Vuitton handbag,”...

Patent protection — and market exclusivity — is the lifeblood of drug companies such as Gilead, creating the incentive to find, test and market a medicine."

Copyright could be the next way for Congress to take on Big Tech; The Verge, February 13, 2020

Adi Robertson, The Verge; Copyright could be the next way for Congress to take on Big Tech

"By the end of the year, Tillis — who chairs the Senate’s intellectual property subcommittee — plans to draft changes to the DMCA. He and co-chair Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) kicked off the process this week with an introductory hearing, speaking to eight legal experts and former congressional staffers. The hearing helped set the stage to re-fight some long-running battles over the balance between protecting copyrighted content and keeping the internet open — but at a time where internet companies are already facing a large-scale backlash.

The 1998 DMCA attempted to outline how copyright should work on the then-nascent internet, where you could almost freely and infinitely copy a piece of media. But it’s been widely criticized by people with very different stances on intellectual property."

What China’s empty new coronavirus hospitals say about its secretive system; The Guardian, February 12, 2020

Emma Graham-Harrison, The Guardian; What China’s empty new coronavirus hospitals say about its secretive system

"A propaganda system designed to support the party and state cannot be relied on for accurate information. That is a problem not just for families left bereft by the coronavirus and businesses destroyed by the sudden shutdown, but for a world trying to assess Beijing’s success in controlling and containing the disease.

“China’s centralised system and lack of freedom of press definitely delay a necessary aggressive early response when it was still possible to contain epidemics at the local level,” said Ho-fung Hung, a professor in political economy at Johns Hopkins University in the US...

“There is no one quick fix to the Chinese system to make it respond better next time,” said Hung. “But if there is one single factor that could increase the government’s responsiveness to this kind of crisis, [it would be] a free press.”"

How To Teach Artificial Intelligence; Forbes, February 12, 2020

Tom Vander Ark, Forbes; How To Teach Artificial Intelligence

"Artificial intelligence—code that learns—is likely to be humankind’s most important invention. It’s a 60-year-old idea that took off five years ago when fast chips enabled massive computing and sensors, cameras, and robots fed data-hungry algorithms...

A World Economic Forum report indicated that 89% of U.S.-based companies are planning to adopt user and entity big data analytics by 2022, while more than 70% want to integrate the Internet of Things, explore web and app-enabled markets, and take advantage of machine learning and cloud computing.

Given these important and rapid shifts, it’s a good time to consider what young people need to know about AI and information technology. First, everyone needs to be able to recognize AI and its influence on people and systems, and be proactive as a user and citizen. Second, everyone should have the opportunity to use AI and big data to solve problems. And third, young people interested in computer science as a career should have a pathway for building AI...

The MIT Media Lab developed a middle school AI+Ethics course that hits many of these learning objectives. It was piloted by Montour Public Schools outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which has incorporated the three-day course in its media arts class."

The coronavirus outbreak has exposed the deep flaws of Xi’s autocracy; The Guardian, February 9, 2020

Richard McGregor, The Guardian; The coronavirus outbreak has exposed the deep flaws of Xi’s autocracy

"The authoritarian strictures of the Chinese party state place a premium on the control of information in the name of maintaining stability. In such a system, lower-level officials have no incentive to report bad news up the line. Under Xi, such restrictions have grown tighter.

In Wuhan, Li and seven of his fellow doctors had been talking among themselves in an internet chat group about a new cluster of viral infections. They stopped after being warned by police. By the time the authorities reacted and quarantined the city, it was too late.

Li was neither a dissident nor a pro-democracy activist seeking to overthrow the Communist party. But he was risking jail to even discuss the virus. For in Xi’s China, the professional classes – doctors, lawyers, journalists and the like – all must subsume their skills and ethics to the political directives of the moment."

Montana seeks balancing act with wildlife location data, hunting ethics; Independent Record, February 6, 2020

Tom Kuglin, Independent Record; Montana seeks balancing act with wildlife location data, hunting ethics


"While GPS collars are invaluable to researchers and wildlife managers, the data they produce are the subject of debate about who should have access to the information and why. Some hunters have requested and received the exact latitude and longitude of collared animals, and that has conservation groups and lawmakers concerned about violating the edict of fair chase hunting or the potential to monetize the data."

Putting China in charge of the world’s intellectual property is a bad idea; The Washington Post, Janaury 30, 2020

Josh Rogin , The Washington Post; Putting China in charge of the world’s intellectual property is a bad idea

"Beijing is lobbying hard to take over leadership of the international organization that oversees intellectual property, which could result in dire consequences for the future of technology and economic competition. But the U.S.-led effort to prevent this from happening faces a steep uphill climb.

In March, 83 countries will vote to elect the next director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a U.N.-created body founded in 1967 “to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world.” The Chinese candidate, Wang Binying, currently serves as one of its four deputy director-generals and is widely seen as the front-runner.

On its face, allowing China to assume leadership of the WIPO poses a clear risk to the integrity of the institution, given that the U.S. government has singled out China as the leading source of intellectual property theft in the world."

Chinese scientists ask for patent on US drug to fight virus; Associated Press, February 6, 2020

Joe McDonald and Linda A. Johnson, Associated Press; Chinese scientists ask for patent on US drug to fight virus

"China has the right under World Trade Organization rules to declare an emergency and compel a company to license a patent to protect the public. It would be required to pay a license fee that is deemed fair market value. 

The government might be able to avoid that fee if the patent were granted to the Wuhan institute, part of the elite Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

The institute said it applied for a “use patent” that specifies the Wuhan virus as the drug’s target. Gilead’s patent application, filed before the virus was identified, cites only the overall family of coronaviruses."

It wasn’t just the National Archives. The Library of Congress also balked at a Women’s March photo.; The Washington Post, January 31, 2020

Joe Heim , The Washington Post; It wasn’t just the National Archives. The Library of Congress also balked at a Women’s March photo.

 

"The Library of Congress abandoned plans last year to showcase a mural-size photograph of demonstrators at the 2017 Women’s March in Washington because of concerns it would be perceived as critical of President Trump, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post...

 

Slayton said the decision to remove the photograph was made by leadership of the library’s Center for Exhibits and Interpretation. “No outside entities reviewed this exhibition’s content before it opened or opined on its content,” the spokeswoman wrote.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden was informed of the decision soon after and supported it, Slayton said. Hayden, who is in the fourth year of her 10-year term, was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2016 and confirmed by the Senate."