Andrew Burt on the Ethical and Legal Challenges of Regulating Artificial Intelligence

On April 12, at offices of the healthcare incubator MATTER at the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago, as well as streamed live online, Andrew Burt, chief privacy officer and legal engineer at the data management company Immuta, delivered a lecture entitled "Regulating Artificial Intelligence: How to Control the Unexplainable" in which he focused on the ethical, legal, and regulatory issues surrounding the deployment of machine learning systems. Sponsored by all three UChicago Graham School Professional Masters degree programs--Biomedical Informatics (MScBMI), Analytics (MScA), and Threat and Response Management (MScTRM)--the catalyst for the occasion was Sam Volchenboum, MD, PhD, MS, director of the Center for Research Informatics at UChicago, and faculty director for the BMI program, whose encounter with Burt at a recent South by Southwest conference led to an exchange of ideas he saw as immediately relevant to the Graham School programs. "As a physician, I'm seeing the use of machine learning algorithms all over the hospital and all over medicine," Dr. Volchenboum said. "We just plow ahead with developing our models and our predictions. But it wasn't until I spoke with Andrew that I really stopped and thought about the implications of these algorithms and how they can be used in both good and also bad ways. It was an eye-opening experience and I've been really excited about bringing Andrew here to talk ever since."