Hi all,
I’m Hannah Daniel, Google DeepMind software engineer and Cornell graduate. I’m currently building a medical super intelligence venture with Dr. Synho Do, director of the Lab of Medical Imaging and Computation at Harvard Medical School.
I am deeply honored to be invited by Dr. Neil to act as a HIFA correspondent at the WHA 79.
The main themes of discussion in the UN Plenary included an attack on medical systems in war-torn communities and the need for pandemic global readiness and stability as seen by the rise of Hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks. We also see a focus on health system resilience through existential crises in affected nations. There was also an active discussion on the effects of climate change readiness and the effect it has on global community health.
Furthermore, I also was in attendance at the Health Innovation Exchange WHA side event. I gleaned information during the discussions about initiatives for data equity lead by tech companies. There is an immense need to build support infrastructure that lasts through conflict. We also see an exigency for unifying discrepancies between regulatory landscapes in countries to create a unified data source for medical datasets. Though some physicians have mixed opinions on the implementation of AI in healthcare settings there was a consensus that there is a real possibility of democratizing healthcare in LMICs with this upcoming technology.
Finally, a sentiment that was unilaterally agreed upon is the need for data diversity. All demographics should be accurately represented in medical datasets. In the United States, there are offerings like Open Evidence and ChatGPT for Clinicians. These offerings provide a limited provenance trail and would fall short of the incoming regulatory landscape as seen by the EU AI Act. There is a call to action to develop medical AI solutions that are honest and explainable.
This is the HIFA briefing for WHA 79, May 19. Stay tuned for further updates!
Best,
Hannah C. Daniel
Cornell '23 | Computer Science
HIFA profile: Hannah Daniel is a software engineer at Google, where she worked on Google AI Studio, a platform for software developers to use Gemini models. Her work is now focused on designing AI data systems at scale. She is passionate about building responsible and safe AI systems. She graduated with a B.S. Computer Science degree from Cornell University. hannahoviya@gmail.com