Scottish university to host AI ethics conference; Holyrood, October 2, 2024

 Holyrood; Scottish university to host AI ethics conference

"The University of Glasgow will gather leading figures from the artificial intelligence (AI) community for a three-day conference this week in a bid to address the ethical challenges posed by the technology.

Starting tomorrow, the Lovelace-Hodgkin Symposium, will see academics, researchers, and policymakers discuss how to make AI a tool for “positive change” across higher education.

The event will inform the development of a new online course on AI ethics, which will boost ethical literacy "across higher education and beyond”, the university said...

During the symposium, speakers from the university’s research and student communities will present and participate in workshops alongside representatives to build the new course.

The first day of the event will examine the current state of AI, focusing on higher education and the use of AI in research and teaching.

On Thursday, the conference will discuss how to tackle inequality and bias in AI, featuring discussions on AI and race, gender, the environment, children’s rights, and how AI is communicated and consumed.

The final day will involve participants creating an ethical framework for inclusive AI, where they will outline a series of actionable steps and priorities for academic institutions, which will be used to underpin the online course."

Communities suffer when library budgets are cut​​​​​​​ - Sean McNamara; The Scotsman, May 22, 2022

Sean McNamara, The Scotsman; Communities suffer when library budgets are cut​​​​​​​ - Sean McNamara

How much value a nation or local authority attaches to its libraries can often be a good indication over how much it values its people.

[Kip Currier: Interesting 5/22/22 perspective on the vital role libraries/librarians fill for communities in Scotland, mirroring many of the challenges libraries/librarians are facing in the U.S. now too. The "culture of firefighting" metaphor (see excerpt below) perfectly captures the need for us to be proactive, rather than reactive.]

"In Scotland we have supportive politicians at all levels, a public that defends their libraries, a national strategy and strong collaboration between national bodies. And yet, the monetary support for libraries continues to fall often creating a culture of firefighting rather than the robust service building and forward planning we need in 2022.

Libraries in Scotland help meet some of our biggest financial and societal challenges. They do this by providing life changing and equitable access to books and computers, by improving health and wellbeing, by reducing social isolation and by being free at point of use, often one of the only places that is in many communities...

Libraries are backed by an excellent national plan and are hugely popular, recently gaining 45 million annual visits, up 40 per cent from 2010, yet spending has fallen by around 30 per cent in the same period. We have incredible libraries and skilled librarians, but they are dealing with year-on-year budget cuts and staff too often on low pay or insecure contracts. This cannot continue, Scotland’s communities and their librarians deserve better."