EECS

The more students a department teaches, the more unrestricted funds need to be allocated to supporting TAs and lecturers. This, in turn, poses a significant financial burden for those departments actually performing the university’s stated mission. Financially, departments want — and need — to teach less.

The UC Board of Admission and Relations with Schools, or BOARS, voted Friday to undo a decision to allow data science to count instead of Algebra II for UC undergraduate admissions requirements.

Researchers from the Sky Computing lab and the Berkeley AI Research, or BAIR, Lab recently released Gorilla, a large language model, or LLM, designed to revolutionize the way AI algorithms function, according to Shishir Patil, campus computer science doctoral student and project lead.

The UC Board of Regents met Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss AI investments, immigration status and work-study jobs, ableism training for faculty and staff and budget reports. The board also voted to unanimously approve UC Berkeley’s new College of Computing, Data Science and Society, or CDSS.

Approved by the University of California Board of Regents on May 18, CDSS is UC Berkeley’s first new college in 50 years. The undergraduate majors in computer science, data science and statistics currently housed in the College of Letters and Science, or L&S, are expected to transition into the new college by spring 2024, according to Assistant Dean of Communications for CDSS Tiffany Lohwater. 

After months of bargaining and two weeks since entering mediation, UAW 2865 and UC Berkeley agreed on a labor model for undergraduate EECS and data science course staffers Monday.

To grease the wheels on months-long contract negotiations, UC Berkeley and UAW 2865 have picked a mediator: Sacramento mayor Darrell Steinberg.

Kresge Engineering Library, a hub dedicated to engineering students for the purposes of study and collaboration, will temporarily close from May 12 until early 2025.

Co-founder of artificial intelligence, or AI, tech company OpenAI and research scientist John Schulman spoke at the campus EECS colloquium Wednesday regarding the future of ChatGPT and its AI counterparts. 

The California Public Employment Relations Board received an unfair labor practice charge Friday from UAW 2865, which alleges that the university has violated the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act on at least 13 accounts.