Two case studies on AI-enabled technologies employed to monitor, respond to and manage individuals or populations deemed at risk

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it abundantly clear that international cooperation and knowledge sharing are of the upmost importance to maintaining global public health. As the TUM’s strategic partnership initiative articulates “No single university or country can master today’s scientific challenges on its own.” To this end the IEAI will carry out research on the use of AI the manage pandemics and crises with our Global AI Ethics Consortium (GAIEC) partners AND TUM strategic partners, the University of Tokyo and Imperial College of Science and Technology and Medicine (Imperial College London).

The year long project focuses on the use of AI-enabled technologies employed to monitor, respond to and manage individuals or populations deemed at risk. We will investigate two case studies, (1) the ethics of the use of AI in smart city technologies employed during crises (with the University of Tokyo) and (2) ethics of the use of AI in adaptive data driven health surveillance (with Imperial College London). Effective mechanisms for communication and education on the ethical challenges of these technologies will also be a priority of the research. The result of this research will be presented in a workshop to coincide with the Responsible AI Forum in Summer 2021, introducing implementable guidelines for policymakers. However, the longer-term goal of this one-year project is to build a foundation for and to facilitate increased and meaningful cooperation between the IEAI/TUM strategic partners in the area of AI ethics and healthcare.

Research Outputs:

AI-powered public surveillance systems: why we (might) need them and how we want them

Assessing Fairness in AI-enabled Public Health Surveillance

Ethics of surveillance: harnessing the use of live facial recognition technologies in public spaces for law enforcement

Individuality and fairness in public health surveillance technology: A survey of user perceptions in contact tracing apps

TRAIF – Parallel Session: AI & Covid-19

Vigilância e Relações de Poder – O Uso de Tecnologias de Reconhecimento Facial e Identificação Biométrica a Distância em Espaço Público e Impactos na Vida Pública

Governing AI during a pandemic crisis: Initiatives at the EU level