Description

This event highlighted the challenges and opportunities in harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to serve the needs of individuals with disabilities and dependencies. AI can improve the lives of people with disabilities, such as smart devices supporting people with physical disabilities or sight loss. On the other hand, AI outputs can also reflect discriminatory biases present in the underlying data used to develop the algorithms. While this “garbage in, garbage out” principle is well documented in respect to AI and gender or race, it is understudied in respect to disability or dependencies.

Interdisciplinary panels of legal scholars, ethicists, AI developers, medical and service providers, and advocates with disabilities/ dependencies explored best practices and guidelines for stakeholders, guided by ethical principles, legal considerations, and the needs of people with disabilities/ dependencies. Participants sought to articulate clear criteria for developers and medical providers looking to harness the potential of AI to serve individuals with disabilities/ dependencies, including those whose disabilities/ dependencies are the result of aging, injury, or disease, and the caregivers — including both professionals and unpaid friends and families — who support some of these individuals.

Agenda

1:00 – 2:00pm, Panel 1: AI and Disability

• Betsy Beaumon, CEO, Benetech
• Noll Campbell, Research Scientist, Indiana University Center for Aging Research at Regenstrief Institute and Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, Purdue University College of Pharmacy
• Jennifer Hawkins, Associate Research Professor, Department of Philosophy, Duke University
• Moderator: Michael Ashley Stein, Executive Director, Harvard Law School Project on Disability and Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School

2:00 – 3:00pm, Keynote

• Geralyn Miller, Director of Health Strategy, Microsoft AI for Good Research Lab

3:00 – 3:45pm, Panel 2: AI and Dependency

• Sharona Hoffman, Edgar A. Hahn Professor of Law, School of Law, Co-Director, The Law-Medicine Center, School of Law, and Professor, Department of Bioethics, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University
• Ari Ne’eman, PhD Student in Health Policy, Harvard University, and founder, Autistic Self Advocacy Network
• Ranak Trivedi, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavior Sciences, Stanford University
• Moderator: Sonoo Thadaney, Executive Director, Stanford Presence and Executive Director, Program in Bedside Medicine

Slide Presentations

• Noll Campbell, “Artificial Intelligence & Disabilities: Cognitive Impairment and Dementia”
• Sharona Hoffman, “AI and Long-Term Health Predictions: Legal & Ethical Concerns”
• Ari Ne’eman, “To What Point and Purpose?: Competing Goals in the Context of Artificial Intelligence and Disability”
• Ranak Trivedi, “Bridging the Gap Between Artificial Intelligence and Natural Connections”

Sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School; the Harvard Law School Project on Disability (HPOD); the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University; the Regenstrief Institute; and the Presence at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Support provided by the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.