More Like this

1. Cultivating Ethical Engineers in the Age of AI and Robotics: An Educational Cultures Perspective

   Rea, Stephen; Zhu, Qin; Nieusma, Dean; Shiekh, Kylee; Williams, Tom (January 2021, IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society)

   This paper considers the cultivation of ethical identities among future engineers and computer scientists, particularly those whose professional practice will extensively intersect with emerging technologies enabled by artificial intelligence (AI). Many current engineering and computer science students will go on to participate in the development and refinement of AI, machine learning, robotics, and related technologies, thereby helping to shape the future directions of these applications. Researchers have demonstrated the actual and potential deleterious effects that these technologies can have on individuals and communities. Together, these trends present a timely opportunity to steer AI and robotic design in directions that confront, or at least do not extend, patterns of discrimination, marginalization, and exclusion. Examining ethics interventions in AI and robotics education may yield insights into challenges and opportunities for cultivating ethical engineers. We present our ongoing research on engineering ethics education, examine how our work is situated with respect to current AI and robotics applications, and discuss a curricular module in “Robot Ethics” that was designed to achieve interdisciplinary learning objectives. Finally, we offer recommendations for more effective engineering ethics education, with a specific focus on emerging technologies. 

   more » « less
2. A Bibliometric Analysis and Network Visualisation of Human Mobility Studies from 1990 to 2020: Emerging Trends and Future Research Directions

   https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105372  

   Wang, Siqin; Zhang, Mengxi; Hu, Tao; Fu, Xiaokang; Gao, Zhe; Halloran, Briana; Liu, Yan (May 2021, Sustainability)

   Studies on human mobility have a long history with increasingly strong interdisciplinary connections across social science, environmental science, information and technology, computer science, engineering, and health science. However, what is lacking in the current research is a synthesis of the studies to identify the evolutional pathways and future research directions. To address this gap, we conduct a systematic review of human mobility-related studies published from 1990 to 2020. Drawing on the selected publications retrieved from the Web of Science, we provide a bibliometric analysis and network visualisation using CiteSpace and VOSviewer on the number of publications and year published, authors and their countries and afflictions, citations, topics, abstracts, keywords, and journals. Our findings show that human mobility-related studies have become increasingly interdisciplinary and multi-dimensional, which have been strengthened by the use of the so-called ‘big data’ from multiple sources, the development of computer technologies, the innovation of modelling approaches, and the novel applications in various areas. Based on our synthesis of the work by top cited authors we identify four directions for future research relating to data sources, modelling methods, applications, and technologies. We advocate for more in-depth research on human mobility using multi-source big data, improving modelling methods and integrating advanced technologies including artificial intelligence, and machine and deep learning to address real-world problems and contribute to social good. 

   more » « less
3. Digital Health Apps in the Clinical Care of Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Scoping Review

   https://doi.org/10.2196/14630  

   Yin, Andrew Lukas; Hachuel, David; Pollak, John P; Scherl, Ellen J; Estrin, Deborah (January 2019, Journal of Medical Internet Research)

   Background Digital health is poised to transform health care and redefine personalized health. As Internet and mobile phone usage increases, as technology develops new ways to collect data, and as clinical guidelines change, all areas of medicine face new challenges and opportunities. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is one of many chronic diseases that may benefit from these advances in digital health. This review intends to lay a foundation for clinicians and technologists to understand future directions and opportunities together. Objective This review covers mobile health apps that have been used in IBD, how they have fit into a clinical care framework, and the challenges that clinicians and technologists face in approaching future opportunities. Methods We searched PubMed, Scopus, and ClinicalTrials.gov to identify mobile apps that have been studied and were published in the literature from January 1, 2010, to April 19, 2019. The search terms were (“mobile health” OR “eHealth” OR “digital health” OR “smart phone” OR “mobile app” OR “mobile applications” OR “mHealth” OR “smartphones”) AND (“IBD” OR “Inflammatory bowel disease” OR “Crohn's Disease” (CD) OR “Ulcerative Colitis” (UC) OR “UC” OR “CD”), followed by further analysis of citations from the results. We searched the Apple iTunes app store to identify a limited selection of commercial apps to include for discussion. Results A total of 68 articles met the inclusion criteria. A total of 11 digital health apps were identified in the literature and 4 commercial apps were selected to be described in this review. While most apps have some educational component, the majority of apps focus on eliciting patient-reported outcomes related to disease activity, and a few are for treatment management. Significant benefits have been seen in trials relating to education, quality of life, quality of care, treatment adherence, and medication management. No studies have reported a negative impact on any of the above. There are mixed results in terms of effects on office visits and follow-up. Conclusions While studies have shown that digital health can fit into, complement, and improve the standard clinical care of patients with IBD, there is a need for further validation and improvement, from both a clinical and patient perspective. Exploring new research methods, like microrandomized trials, may allow for more implementation of technology and rapid advancement of knowledge. New technologies that can objectively and seamlessly capture remote data, as well as complement the clinical shift from symptom-based to inflammation-based care, will help the clinical and health technology communities to understand the full potential of digital health in the care of IBD and other chronic illnesses. 

   more » « less
4. Predicting the Future of AI with AI: High-Quality link prediction in an exponentially growing knowledge network

   Mario Krenn, Lorenzo Buffoni (October 2023, Nature machine intelligence)

   A tool that could suggest new personalized research directions and ideas by taking insights from the scientific literature could significantly accelerate the progress of science. A field that might benefit from such an approach is artificial intelligence (AI) research, where the number of scientific publications has been growing exponentially over the last years, making it challenging for human researchers to keep track of the progress. Here, we use AI techniques to predict the future research directions of AI itself. We develop a new graph-based benchmark based on real-world data -- the Science4Cast benchmark, which aims to predict the future state of an evolving semantic network of AI. For that, we use more than 100,000 research papers and build up a knowledge network with more than 64,000 concept nodes. We then present ten diverse methods to tackle this task, ranging from pure statistical to pure learning methods. Surprisingly, the most powerful methods use a carefully curated set of network features, rather than an end-to-end AI approach. It indicates a great potential that can be unleashed for purely ML approaches without human knowledge. Ultimately, better predictions of new future research directions will be a crucial component of more advanced research suggestion tools. 

   more » « less
5. Physician Perspectives on the Potential Benefits and Risks of Applying Artificial Intelligence in Psychiatric Medicine: Qualitative Study

   https://doi.org/10.2196/64414  

   Stroud, Austin M; Curtis, Susan H; Weir, Isabel B; Stout, Jeremiah J; Barry, Barbara A; Bobo, William V; Athreya, Arjun P; Sharp, Richard R (January 2025, JMIR Mental Health)

   BackgroundAs artificial intelligence (AI) tools are integrated more widely in psychiatric medicine, it is important to consider the impact these tools will have on clinical practice. ObjectiveThis study aimed to characterize physician perspectives on the potential impact AI tools will have in psychiatric medicine. MethodsWe interviewed 42 physicians (21 psychiatrists and 21 family medicine practitioners). These interviews used detailed clinical case scenarios involving the use of AI technologies in the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of psychiatric conditions. Interviews were transcribed and subsequently analyzed using qualitative analysis methods. ResultsPhysicians highlighted multiple potential benefits of AI tools, including potential support for optimizing pharmaceutical efficacy, reducing administrative burden, aiding shared decision-making, and increasing access to health services, and were optimistic about the long-term impact of these technologies. This optimism was tempered by concerns about potential near-term risks to both patients and themselves including misguiding clinical judgment, increasing clinical burden, introducing patient harms, and creating legal liability. ConclusionsOur results highlight the importance of considering specialist perspectives when deploying AI tools in psychiatric medicine. 

   more » « less