The final CCC panel of AAAS 2023, “Maintaining a Rich Breadth for Artificial Intelligence”, was held on Sunday, March 5th, the last day of the conference. This panel was composed of David Danks (University of California – San Diego), Bo Li (University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign), and Melanie Mitchell (Santa Fe Institute) and was moderated by Maria Gini (University of Minnesota).    Dr. Bo Li began the panel by discussing the importance of conducting trustworthy machine learning (ML), and the ways in which we can ensure ML is safe, equitable, and inclusive. Machine learning is ubiquitous, Li said, and today is used in a significant number of everyday activities, such […]

Mental well-being is essential to a happy life, and especially with the stresses of the pandemic heightening the mental health crisis plaguing the US and the world, research on ways technology can improve mental health has never been more crucial. Technology can be detrimental to users’ mental health, but there are also abundant ways that it can be used to improve mental health. CCC organized a panel, “Improving Mental Health and Supporting Self-regulation with Technology,” that outlined the status of many creative technologies that support people’s mental well-being. The panelists were Dr. Tanzeem Choudhury (Cornell University), Dr. Mary Czerwinski (Microsoft Research), and Dr. Shri Narayanan (University of Southern California). The […]

Continuing in our AAAS panel recaps, the CCC hosted a panel titled, “Sustaining Computing Research Communities in a Hybrid World”. The panelists were Brent Hecht (Microsoft), Richard Ladner (University of Washington), and Cristina Videira Lopes (University of California, Irvine), and the panel was moderated by Sujata Banerjee (VMware).   During the hybrid 2023 AAAS conference, there were many issues with virtual capability, culminating in an announcement on the morning of the second day that the organizers made the decision to shift to an in-person only conference. This was a disappointing technological failure, but it highlighted the difficulties that arise from hybrid conferences, which these panelists discussed at length.   Dr. […]

An individual’s health is an incredibly personal subject, and going to the doctor can be an intimidating and stressful experience. This is especially true for people that are part of groups that the medical system has historically failed. These structural issues in the healthcare system have permeated the algorithms that are increasingly being used in the diagnosis and treatment of patients. CCC organized a panel, “Health Equity: How Can Algorithms and Data Mitigate, Not Exacerbate, Harms?” that addressed these issues. The panelists were Dr. Amaka Eneanya (Fresenius Medical Care), Dr. Mona Singh (Princeton University), Dr. Melanie Moses (University of New Mexico), and Dr. Katie Siek (Indiana University). Dr. Eneanya began […]

On the second day of the 2023 AAAS Annual Meeting, held in Washington, DC, the CCC supported its first of 6 panels, titled, Surveillance, Assistance or Hinderance?: Caregiving Technologies for Older Adults. The three panelists were Robin Brewer (University of Michigan), George Demiris (University of Pennsylvania), and Anne M. Turner (University of Washington), and the panel was moderated by CCC Council member Katie Siek (Indiana University).   Professor Turner kicked off the panel with a detailed description of the Decision Making in Alzheimer’s Research (DMAR) project which she leads. This project is funded by the National Institute on Aging and focuses on strategies for tracking preferences of older adults with […]

Elections that are safe, secure, and verifiable by the public are an essential part of every democratic government. There have been public outcries for changes in the election process in the US and around the world as citizens have been frustrated with the lack of transparency. Election confidence from the majority of the public is not easy to obtain, but the panelists of a CCC-organized panel at the AAAS Annual Meeting made many suggestions on steps we can take to do just that. The panelists of the session, “Emerging Election Technologies Enhancing Integrity, Transparency, and Confidence” were Philip B. Stark (University of California, Berkeley), Josh Benaloh (Microsoft Research), and Poorvi […]