Gateway Virtual Lecture Series - Artificial Intelligence, Healthcare & Inequality
by Bob Montgomery
A PhD Candidate of Social and Economic Sciences at the University of Technology in Vienna, Austria, will be the guest speaker at next week's Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health's virtual lecture series.
Leslie Walker is also a research assistant with Gateway and will be presenting her research into policies to reduce the inequality associated with Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare.
“There are opportunities and challenges related to AI, but in general, because of the nature of the technology, it will exacerbate current trends in society. So, if the society is fairly democratic and fair and equal then it will make it more fair and equal, but if a society is unequal then it'll make more unequal. And in Canada I'm sure we're all feeling the pinch, some of the shifts of wealth, so it creates some additional concerns so we just want people to be aware of what's on the radar and what to look out for.”
Walker suggests the system is broken right now and we see it economically, with the healthcare system and on a variety of fronts. She says Austria approaches this very differently than Canada and she thinks that's why we're seeing a few less fault lines, but in Canada things aren't what they used to be and that's a result of policy decisions or cultural decisions. Walker says it's time to take a step back and acknowledge the direction we're taking isn't the best one. “We have an opportunity to pivot and so as a culture let's collectively says we don't want to double down on the road we're currently taking, it's going to be a bumpy ride so lets rethink things.”
Walker says although her discussion will relate to AI, it will also be a broader conversation but she says AI does tend to exacerbate what's going on.
The lecture will take place on Tuesday, March 5th, from 12:00 PM till 1:00 PM via Zoom. Two panelists; Stefan Salcher, a serial entrepreneur coming from a computer engineering and media science background and Geneva Neal, a Senior Data Analyst at the University of Toronto. You can register for the lecture here.
