Sean Patterson

 

Brief 1, Story 1:

 

An Indiana Senate passes a bill that will require public and charter schools to offer Computer science as an elective course is moving through the legislative process.

 

Bill 172 in the Indiana Senate will require schools to offer a one-semester computer science elective course at least once each school year for high school students.

 

It will also require it to be put in the public school’s science curriculum in kindergarten through grade 12.

 

One of the biggest issues in schools is that computer science isn’t really stressed, it includes “valuable skills” that students of any age should know said Keenan Lewis Jolly a computer science major here at southern.

 

The bill will also establish a grant program and computer science fund in order to implement teacher professional development programs to train in teaching computer science.

 

Brief 1, Story 2:

 

MIT researchers have attempted to design computer chips that work like the human brain for better and faster processing.

 

When it comes to processing power, the human brain cannot be beat. Somewhere around 100 billion neurons are packed into our football-sized organs.

 

Researchers in the emerging field of “neuromorphic computing” have attempted to design computer chips that work like the human brain that will carry out computations that would work in an “analog fashion,” much like our neurons.

 

“I think that’s pretty cool, you don’t really hear about computer chips acting like a brain, that’s a big advancement for our field,” said Kym Haywood, a junior computer science major.

 

With this advancement, the small “brain on a chip” could efficiently process millions of streams of parallel computations comparable to that of supercomputers.

 

Brief 1, Story 3:

 

Artificial Intelligence in court rooms are starting to use algorithms to rule on jail time.

 

The centuries-old process of determining a defendant’s jail time based on judicial discretion is now being assisted by AI.

 

Instead of determining someone’s chance or amount of bail based on court files and personal intuition, Cleveland and a number of local and state courts are now being guided by computer algorithms and before deciding a defendant’s fate.

“I personally don’t think computers should determine a persons fate, but I guess it could be more efficient,” said Kym Haywood.

 

The system takes the likelihood or chance that you will commit the same or another crime using courthouse data and determines if the defendant can return to everyday life.