Serving The University Of Texas At Austin Community Since 1900 @thedailytexan | thedailytexan.com
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Volume 120, Issue 98
NEWS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFE&ARTS
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SG leaders pass legislation for a nontraditional student center on campus.
The term “people of color” cannot accurately describe the Black experience.
CAMPUS
UT prepares inventory, collectibles for online auction By Nataleah Small @nataleahjoy
Longhorn-branded gear and collectibles are up for auction online as they are being cleared out of athletics facilities undergoing construction. Jerseys, gloves and burnt orange-colored chairs are among the items for sale through UT Surplus Property, a branch of Facilities Services that is responsible for repurposing University property. Recently, Texas Athletics donated inventory from Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium to the property because of the South End Zone construction project, said John Bianco, senior associate athletics director for sports communications and media relations, in an email. Surplus Property handles all the materials the University no longer needs, said resource recovery manager Robert Moddrell. He said they deal with everything from nursing school mannequins to audiovisual equipment. “If you’ve seen it at UT and it’s not bolted to a building, when somebody doesn’t need it anymore, it has to come to us,” Moddrell said. Bianco said funds from these auctions are utilized to support Texas Athletics sustainability efforts. “This is a great way for fans and the general public to obtain items that can be reused, utilized, repurposed, reconditioned or displayed for
Paddles with a Purpose is the first breast cancer survivor team in the Austin area.
Distance runner Sam Worley takes the torch and leads Texas into a new era.
CITY
Amazon Fresh launches in Austin New grocery delivery service improves ease of access to fresh food, produce for students. By Brooke Ontiveros @brookexpanic
mazon Fresh launched in Austin last Thursday, allowing Amazon Prime members to ship groceries to their door in two hours with no delivery fee with a purchase of $35 or more, according to a statement from Amazon. Now, Whole Foods Market and Amazon Fresh groceries are available for Austin residents, so students in apartments can deliver products to their homes, according to the statement. Shipments to dormitories are not allowed, according to Amazon’s website. Psychology sophomore Katerina Mangini said she thinks the service will save her time and money. “It will cut down the time that students would be taking to (the) grocery shop,” Mangini said. “It would also be helping because a lot of students don’t have cars, so they won’t have to pay for transportation.”
I for sure think people will start ordering more from these online apps ... and in a few years, it’s just going to be the norm.” KEVIN SHE
accounting sophomore
Mangini said some of the closest grocery stores are about a 10-minute drive away but are longer on a bus or bike. She said the commute dissuades students from going to the stores.
steph sonik
“There’s also the Target on (Guadalupe Street), but I never go there (because of limited) produce,” Mangini said. Mangini said a lot of her friends don’t cook because it takes a lot of time and they don’t know what to look for at grocery stores. “(Amazon Fresh) might encourage people to cook more if they don’t do that a lot,” Mangini said. “It will help, especially if you can … order your groceries while you’re walking to class and then by the time you’re home they’re there.” Art history freshman Janet Rasmussen, who
/ the daily texan staff
lives in Jester West, said she wishes Amazon Fresh would deliver to dorms so she could cook more. “Me and my roommate eat so much in our dormitory,” Rasmussen said. “When it is late at night you can’t go to the dining hall, and you don’t want to walk at night here so it would be very convenient to be able to use (the service).” Accounting sophomore Kevin She, who prepares his meals in advance for the week, said he is wary of grocery delivery services like A M A Z O N PAGE 3
A U C T I O N PAGE 3 UNIVERSITY
CITY
UT professor receives funding for unbiased artificial intelligence research By Brooke Ontiveros @brookexpanic
An assistant professor at the UT School of Information received more than $1 million last month in grant funding to research how to create more accurate and representative artificial intelligence applications, according to the School of Information’s press release on Feb. 5. The National Science Foundation, in partnership with Amazon, awarded $1,037,000 to Min Kyung Lee to fund her project, Advancing Fairness in AI with Human-Algorithm Collaborations. Lee will work with researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities to complete research by 2022, according to the School of Information’s press release. “AI is growing, but the problem is it’s growing too fast without careful evaluation and examination of its consequences,” Lee said. “It’s the researcher’s role to make sure, in the early stages, (that) AI will be (fair).” Lee said a lot of companies are using AI, but they do not always examine whether the AI
is fair. She hopes to create algorithms to help that. To accomplish this, the researchers will gather data on people’s values of fairness, Lee said. “We create parallel comparatives of two decisions and ask people to choose a fair option among the two,” Lee said. “Then, we use this to train a fair algorithm, and we’ll adapt and extend this method.” Lee said one of the questions researchers asked participants was to pick which food kitchen has a greater need for resources. Lee said biases could creep into AI during the training phase when potentially biased data is supplied to the AI. Lee said most biases in AI occur because the datasets or populations given to AI do not represent everyone and everything fairly. She said part of her research is to create fair human feedback to the AI that represents a diverse set of human values. Facial recognition AI biases can appear where the technology will work better for specific populations than others, Lee said. Bias can also be found in recommendation results on social media algorithms such as YouTube and Twitter, which are
Travis County hires first chief public defender By Austin Martinez @austinmxrtinez
copyright min kyung lee, and reproduced with permission
Min Kyung Lee, an assistant professor in the School of Information, recently received a grant from The National Science Foundation and Amazon to fund research in artificial intelligence applications. responsible for search results, Lee said. “Biases in tailored information delivery (could cause)
different people to get more information about opportunities,” Lee said. “For example, job A I PAGE 3
according to the release. “Travis County has a deep commitment and goal to improving our current indigent defense,” Travis County spokesperson Hector Nieto said in an email. “By creating the Public Defender Office and hiring this new Chief Public Defender, Travis County is on track to accomplishing that goal.” The public defender’s office will be funded by a $48 million grant from the Texas Indigent Defense Commission until April 2024, Nieto said in an email. According to Nieto’s email, the county will fully fund the office at about $8.8 million a year after the grant ends. Before being hired in Travis County, Ogunkeyede was the legal director for the Civil Rights and Racial Justice Program at the University of Virginia’s Legal Aid Justice Center, according to the release. Ogunkeyede also served as the director of staff development at The Bronx Defenders, a criminal and civil justice organization in New York, according to the release. Sports management junior
Travis County hired its first chief public defender to represent adults accused of misdemeanor and felony offenses in the county, according to a Travis County press release on Feb. 5. Travis County decided to create a public defender office after a 2018 study by the Council of State Governments found that low-income defendants were more likely to be given jail time than those represented by an attorney, according to KUT. Before the creation of this office, Travis County was the largest jurisdiction in the United States without an office that represents cases for low-income individuals, according to KUT. Travis County commissioners appointed Adeola Ogunkeyede, a former law professor at the University of Virginia, to fill this position. As the chief public defender, Ogunkeyede is responsible for creating a countywide public defender office for Travis County, D E F E N D E R PAGE 3