📩 13/06/2023 13:37
Investments in the expansion of the new ethical artificial intelligence health laboratory and data ethics team stand out. The world has witnessed unprecedented advances in artificial intelligence since AI and analytics company SAS launched its responsible innovation efforts a year ago. In the midst of all these rapid changes, SAS has stepped up its efforts to deliver reliable AI to its customers, including an ethical AI health lab, one of the first in the Netherlands. SAS also expanded its Data Ethics Practice with the integration of the Data for Good program, highlighting the company's potential to improve the world, not just the risks of AI.
Innovative AI healthcare lab powered by AI-focused collaborations
As part of its commitment to responsible innovation, SAS is collaborating with organizations around the globe to explore ways to apply AI within ethical boundaries across industries. A recent example of this is SAS' collaboration with two Dutch organisations: Erasmus University Medical Center (Erasmus MC), one of Europe's leading academic hospitals, and Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), home to the TU Delft Center for Digital Ethics. ). The first ethical artificial intelligence laboratory responsible for health services (Responsible and Ethical AI in Healthcare Lab-REAHL) was established with the coming together of three organizations.
REAHL aims to address ethical concerns and challenges associated with the development and application of AI technologies in healthcare. With rapid advances in artificial intelligence, there is a need to ensure that these technologies are designed and used in a safe, transparent and ethical manner. REAHL brings together multidisciplinary teams of experts in artificial intelligence, medicine and ethics with policy makers to collaborate on the development and implementation of AI technologies that prioritize patient safety, privacy and autonomy.
This approach involves making AI systems impartial, transparent and accountable and used in a way that respects patients' rights and values. REAHL aims to establish a framework that will serve as a model for medical centers and different regions around the world for the use of ethical AI in healthcare.
REAHL has been positioned as an official laboratory by the Netherlands' National Innovation Center for Artificial Intelligence (ICAI). The ICAI laboratory emerged as the product of extensive research-oriented collaboration between industry, public and non-profit organizations, and knowledge institutes. ICAI laboratories aim to meet data, expertise and capacity requirements and present the results obtained practically in real life.
Assistant Professor MD Michel van Genderen, an Intensive Care Specialist at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, as well as the originator and co-founder of Datahub, said:
“Together, we are not only developing AI technologies, but also shaping the future of healthcare through our commitments to uphold ethical principles and prioritize patients' well-being through innovation. With our pioneering work to establish the first ethical artificial intelligence laboratory in healthcare, we are paving the way for a new era of patient care, where the principles of transparency, trust and equality are the main pillars of the use of artificial intelligence technology.”
Dr. van Genderen attended the keynote session on May 9 at the SAS Innovate main stage with Reggie Townsend, SAS Vice President of Data Ethics Practice. He gave information about REAHL and how to improve patient care.
SAS is also a founding member of the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), a community of academic healthcare systems, academic organizations, artificial intelligence and data science experts. CHAI recently published a blueprint for reliable AI for healthcare as a result of the National Academy of Medicine's coordination with AI experts from academic medical centers, healthcare, technology, and other industry sectors. Also, world-renowned academic medical center Duke Health, another CHAI member alongside SAS, recently announced that they will focus their research on innovative and collaborative healthcare solutions with data and analytics.
Extended SAS Data Ethics Practice to explore the promise of AI
The proliferation of examples of ChatGPT, Google Bard, and similar generative AI has taken the public debate on AI to a new level. To explore positive AI practices, SAS recently expanded its Data Ethics Practice by also integrating the company's Data for Good team. Townsend said:
“With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, we must strive to keep people at the center of everything we do. But our goal is not just to secure the future, but to explore opportunities to use AI to make people's lives better.”
The SAS Data for Good team creates opportunities to collaborate with organizations to use artificial intelligence for the good of society. For example, the team has previously collaborated with nonprofits to combat rainforest destruction in Brazil and research housing segregation in New York. In addition, SAS will work with the UNC Center for Galapagos Studies to deploy crowdsourced artificial intelligence and machine learning to help conserve endangered sea turtles.
SAS implements responsible innovation both internally and externally
Some of the innovation activities carried out by SAS last year are as follows:
The company continues to innovate and develop its trusted artificial intelligence platform SAS Viya. SAS Viya increases the confidence of public institutions in responsible AI efforts by having reliable AI capabilities such as bias detection, explainability, decision auditability, monitoring of models, governance and accountability.
The Data Ethics Practice has met more than 200 consulting requests on responsible innovation from across the company.
SAS has launched an in-house training program that teaches data analytics practitioners what responsible innovation means. In this course, attendees learn about the principles of responsible innovation and how SAS software helps analysts meet their duty of care when working with data. Training will be offered outside the institution later in the year.
SAS hosted a meeting of the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee, with Townsend at its headquarters in Cary, NC. Townsend also serves on the board of EqualAI.
SAS contributed to the Business Roundtable's Responsible AI Roadmap to guide American businesses, policymakers and regulators on their shared journey to responsible AI.