AI Here and There: Transatlantic Dialogues on Artificial Intelligence, Society and Innovation
In the past decade, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has quietly and quickly become prominent in our daily lives, whether we have realized it or not. AI has made itself indispensable: in our private lives, in the workplace, in sports, and even art. However, there are only a select few that know what AI really is about and what this means for us as a society. This four-part event series aims at introducing the subject of AI to a broad audience. Each event will be focused on different subjects. Since this is a global topic, we took this opportunity in stride to invite panelists both locally and internationally from Switzerland and the US.
The series is organized by the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York and the Center for Responsible AI | NYU Tandon School of Engineering and hosted by Mona Sloane.
Network Partners:
AI and the Future of Health
Science and technology have always been developing in tandem - this is particularly true for medicine. Now, AI is accelerating this development. Different kinds of AI applications are used in the health industry, ranging from computer vision technologies used in radiology to detect tumors, to the use of machine learning methods in drug discovery, and prediction algorithms that help and identify patients with complex health needs. This third event of the four-part event series “AI Here and There” will focus on the question if and how AI will shape the future of medicine and health. The distinguished panel will bring perspectives from both Switzerland and the US to the table.
Panelists:
Dr. Kadija Ferryman is a cultural anthropologist and bioethicist who studies the social, cultural, and ethical implications of health information technologies. Specifically, her research examines how genomics, digital medical records, artificial intelligence, and other technologies impact racial disparities in health. She is currently Industry Assistant Professor at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. As a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Data & Society Research Institute in New York, she led the Fairness in Precision Medicine research study, which examines the potential for bias and discrimination in predictive precision medicine.
She earned a BA in Anthropology from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from The New School for Social Research. Before completing her Ph.D., she was a policy researcher at the Urban Institute where she studied how housing and neighborhoods impact well-being, specifically the effects of public housing redevelopment on children, families, and older adults. Ferryman is a member of the Institutional Review Board for the All of Research Program, a Mozilla Open Science Fellow, and an Affiliate at the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies. Dr. Ferryman has published research in journals such as Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, European Journal of Human Genetics, and Genetics in Medicine. Her research has been featured in multiple publications including Nature, STAT, and The Financial Times.
Ambassador Amandeep Gill is the Project Director/CEO of the International Digital Health & AI Research Collaborative (I-DAIR), a Geneva-based global platform for enabling inclusive, impactful, and responsible research into digital health and AI for health. He is the former Executive Director and co-Lead of the Secretariat of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation. He previously served as India’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and chaired the Group of Governmental Experts of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) on emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapon systems from 2017-2018. Ambassador Gill has a BTech in Electronics and Electrical Communications from Punjab University, Chandigarh, and an Advanced Diploma in French History and Language from Geneva University. His Ph.D. degree from King’s College London focused on Nuclear Learning in Multilateral Forums.
Dr. Ziad Obermeyer is the Blue Cross of California Distinguished Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, where he does research at the intersection of machine learning, medicine, and health policy. He previously was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, where he received the Early Independence Award, the National Institutes of Health’s most prestigious award for exceptional junior scientists. He continues to practice emergency medicine in underserved parts of the US. Prior to his career in medicine, he worked as a consultant to pharmaceutical and global health clients at McKinsey & Co. in New Jersey, Geneva, and Tokyo.
Dr. Philippe Menu (MD-Ph.D., MBA), Chief Medical Officer of SOPHiA Genetics, a global leader in data-driven medicine, brings a unique blend of medical expertise across clinical medicine, fundamental research in molecular biology and business management consulting. He joined SOPHiA GENETICS in 2020 from McKinsey & Company, where he had spent the last 8 years serving dozens of clients in the biopharma sector, advising global pharmaceutical companies, mid-size players and biotechs alike across the pharma value chain with a major focus on innovative therapies and diagnostics in oncology and rare diseases. Philippe obtained his MD and PhD from the University of Lausanne, and his MBA in Life Sciences from the Open University Business School.
Having established the world's largest data-driven medicine community network through its universal and collaborative AI platform, SOPHiA GENETICS, founded and headquartered in Switzerland, supports healthcare professionals by translating multiple sources of complex medical data into valuable clinical insights.
Switzerland
Digitalisation offers new opportunities for diplomacy, poverty reduction and sustainable development. But there are also risks involved in the processing of vast amounts of data, the spread of fake news and surveillance. By adopting the Digital Foreign Policy Strategy 2021–2024, Switzerland is acknowledging digitalization as a thematic priority of its foreign policy. The world is constantly changing and needs a hub, in other words a space that brings together all states, businesses and citizens – all directly affected by the new challenges of digitalisation. International Geneva is a hub for digital governance. The goal is to promote transparent debate, strengthen international law and encourage international cooperation in dealing with abuses and surveillance, while paying heed to public opinion, and to increase the benefits of new technologies. This virtual Series “AI Here & There” contributes to this inclusive discussion.
Visit the platform about Swiss innovation: swisstech.
Center for Responsible AI | NYU Tandon School of Engineering
As a research and tool production lab, R/AI is charting a path towards responsible AI. In practice, this means ensuring that technical advances are combined with a shift in business practices and much-needed regulatory mechanisms that are informed by social research and robust public participation.
Launched in 2020, R/AI has conducted research on automated decision making systems in hiring; hosted thought-provoking events to debate trends and spotlight tensions; developed new interdisciplinary research projects; co-generated novel, open-source responsible AI/AI literacies curricula for use with adults in informal learning settings at public libraries; produced a dynamic multi-lingual comic series about responsible data science as well as “nutritional labels” to make AI explainability more transparent; advocated for municipal oversight of automated decision-systems; published papers that move the discourse on responsible AI forward; advised on field-based councils; and supported AI for Good programs such as the Women in AI Accelerator. airesponsibly.com