On Friday afternoon, representatives from Notre Dame’s Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society hosted a presentation titled, “Why RISE AI?” to discuss initiatives related to improving AI strategies and informed students about ethical AI usage.
Michele Martin, executive director of the institute, began the lecture by explaining the purpose of it.
“The Lucy Family Institute was established in 2020,” Martin said. “We were founded on a beautiful gift from the Lumpkins family that really focused on how data can impact societal issues.”
She then went on to discuss that although the institute focuses on using technology as a resource, the technology is far from complete in its development. Martin showcased the current flaws in artificial intelligence by displaying AI-created images meant to fit the prompt, “Notre Dame in the 1930s.” From missing limbs, to robotic gazes, to images featuring only women when women had not yet even been allowed into the University, the AI was far from accurate.
“I did this to give an understanding that we are in the very early stages of AI,” Martin said. “I give this to you with a little bit of optimism and a little bit of caution.”
RISE, the institute’s new AI initiative, promotes responsibility, inclusivity, safety and ethics regarding artificial intelligence, which Martin believes is especially crucial in our rapidly developing technological world.
“This is where we believe we, at Notre Dame, have a voice and an imperative to be standing strong in front of and helping to define standards and policies, as well as creating the next generation of data scientists who believe and emulate this RISE moniker,” Martin said.
Adam Czajka, associate professor of computer science and engineering, went on to discuss his research on the potential use of AI for iris recognition of infants to prevent abductions and baby swaps.
“My AI is related to biometrics and all the algorithms that can automatically recognize people using iris recognition,” Czajka said. “Baby swaps and abductions are difficult to solve without strong biometrics.”
Biometrics are unique physical traits used for the automated recognition of any human.
In an interview with The Observer, Czajka said he hopes his research will make an impact on the Notre Dame community by encouraging collaboration among faculty.
“One impact of my biometrics research may be that people from different disciplines will come to the same table,” Czajka said. “There’s always something to consider that I didn’t think about.”
Although AI has been proven to wield great power, Czajka believes that to optimize its potential, we must work together with the technology.
“I think that the future of AI is human and machine pairing,” Czajka stated. “I’m not a big fan of the theory that AI will take over our life.”
However, many companies lack the components of the RISE initiative that Czajka’s lecture promoted.
“I would love to see, especially from those who are leading technology development, more awareness related to human values, rights and ethics and how the technology ultimately serves us,” Czajka said.
Sugana Chawla, associate professor of the practice and data science education program director, discussed the Interdisciplinary Training and Research in Ethical Data Science program.
The program trains scholars in using data science ethically, beginning at a middle school level and continuing into college.
“That’s the heart of iTREDS: empowering students to use data to build a better future,” Chawla said.
Junior Elizabeth Rhee, a student in the iTREDS program at Notre Dame, discussed the program’s initiative to use data to improve health through housing in underresourced communities.
“Housing stability and quality plays a major role in both physical and mental health and low income households in particular find greater challenges when it comes to housing instability,” Rhee said. “The overall goal of this project is to develop a data driven model to evaluate how built environment factors relate to health risk using large scale public data in South Bend.”
The program hopes to lead similar initiatives in other cities in the future, as well as using these principles of data collection and analysis to improve other areas of society.
Nitesh Chawla, founding director of the institute and professor of computer science and engineering, closed the lecture by sharing about the motivations behind all of the institute’s initiatives.
“[Any project] starts with what societal challenge we’re going to address, then we back it up to think how we can involve students and faculty in a very collaborative way,” Chawla said. “No problem or challenge is a domain of any one discipline.”
