Dr. Philip Ora, associate professor of health professions at the University of Detroit Mercy, stands next to an aeroponics shelf where he and two students are growing vegetables. The Aeroponics Lab is just one part of his Olla's larger goal of using his AI and technology for good within local urban communities. (Photo by Gabriella Patti | Detroit Catholic)
Center for Augmenting Intelligence in Urban Health examines practical uses of emerging AI tools in local communities
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detroit — At the University of Detroit Mercy, students and faculty in the College of Health Professions are working to harness the power of artificial intelligence to help their communities.
Dr. Philip Ora, an associate professor at the university, is working to develop the Detroit Mercy Center for Expanding Intelligence in Urban Healthcare, which he says will use technology and artificial intelligence to address communities. It is described as a “solution hub'' that Healthcare needs.
If you don't know how exactly AI can do that, Olla will explain.
“What we’re realizing is that AI is a great tool, but it’s not just a tool. AI is a technology that can really change a lot of things, but the technology isn’t necessarily being used for the best purposes. “We're actually seeing that it's not happening,” Ola explained. detroit catholic. “We're using it to take people's jobs away. We're using it to make more money. We're using it as a weapon. We're using it to make more money. , we're using AI for a lot of things that aren't necessarily the best use of AI.”
Ola said Detroit Mercy's new center is instead being created to focus on harnessing the power of AI to transform community outcomes and leveraging AI for social good.
Mr. Ola has worked on the development of the Detroit Mercy Center for Intelligence Expansion in Urban Healthcare. He described the center as a “solutions hub” that uses technology and artificial intelligence to address community health needs. The aeroponic garden is a small example of how this can be achieved, Ola explained.
Aeroponics technology uses 90% less water and no soil. Ola and two of his students have set up a small aeroponics garden tucked away in the halls of a university building.
The measurable increase in the use of AI in daily life has increased the global debate about the benefits and dangers of artificial intelligence, especially the importance of understanding and using it responsibly. Many people are struggling. Pope Francis has been considering this topic and is scheduled to participate in a session on artificial intelligence at the G7 summit in Puglia, southern Italy, from June 13 to 15.
In his message for World Social Communication Day 2024 on May 12, Pope Francis focused on AI with the theme “Artificial Intelligence and the Wisdom of the Heart: Towards Fully Human Communication.”
AI is “having a fundamental impact on the world of information and communication, and through AI it is impacting certain foundations of social life… (and) these changes are impacting everyone.” said Pope Francis in his message.
“How can we remain fully human and guide this cultural transformation to the right ends?” Pope Francis asked, while also acknowledging the benefits and good that AI can achieve in certain areas. Ta. But he warned that AI “becomes evil when it distorts our relationships with others and with reality.”
Ola said the Detroit Mercy Center for Augmenting Intelligence in Urban Healthcare is exploring ways to use AI to address healthcare challenges unique to urban environments. It began with a forum held at the university's McNichols campus at the end of February. The forum brought together faculty and students from various fields to meet with representatives from Amazon Web Services.
Ola said the forum also addressed the development of AI tools that not only enhance human intelligence but also promote social equity and environmental sustainability.
“The key takeaway from that meeting was that we were trying to build an AI platform that could do three things,” Olla explained.
Ola is tending plants in the center's aeroponics garden, which he says is an example of the use of emerging technology that can use artificial intelligence applications to improve the lives of people in the community. said.
The first element is integrating such tools into communities and providing technology to help people stay healthy, he said.
“The second element is that we are using AI to connect in a culturally meaningful way,” Ola added. “We understand someone's education level, their challenges, the resources they actually need, and we build interfaces that allow them to connect to those resources.”
A third goal is to use AI to explore different types of diagnostic technology and make it available, such as blood pressure monitors and other health tools available in public social settings such as hair salons. .
Ola said the center hopes to have its infrastructure built within a year, and thanks to its partnership with Amazon Web Services, it won't be starting from scratch.
“We're very fortunate to partner with Amazon Web Services because they already have the infrastructure, so a lot of what we do is done in the best possible way using that infrastructure. It’s about really finding ways to do it,” Ora said.
Detroit is ideally suited to develop the idea behind establishing such a center, Ola added.
“We have everything on our doorstep. We have great partners and a great community that recognizes the problem and is looking for solutions,” he said. “Detroit is an ideal solution for this AI Healthcare Innovation Center because we can see all the problems we are solving and immediately see the impact[that our solutions could have].”
For example, Ola and his students have already begun using this technology to address food insecurity in Detroit, especially when it comes to healthy, fresh vegetables.
Megi Lazuli, a junior at the University of Detroit Mercy, checks out the vegetables being grown in an aeroponic shelving system.
Third-grader Liberty Booth cleans around the aeroponics garden tower before harvesting vegetables.
“There are a lot of these grassroots initiatives happening in Detroit, working with urban gardens and local co-ops,” Ora explained. “We started exploring a technique called aeroponics, which uses water, nutrients and light to grow plants.”
This technology reduces water usage by 90% and uses no soil. Together with his two students, Ola established a small aeroponic garden in the hall of a university building. Through trial and error, students learned how to grow a variety of vegetables using this technology, which consists of multiple shelving systems.
“We will explore and purchase equipment, become an aeroponics entrepreneur, install this equipment in your home, basement, garage or warehouse to literally grow food and provide models and training courses on how to make a living from it. We have been developing it,” Ola said. . “It uplifts people from a workforce development standpoint, it gives people new skills and technology. And it brings more, healthier food to our communities.”
Ola said the center hopes that such an approach will be a viable and realistic solution for individuals without agricultural experience in urban environments. But he said this is just one example of how technology can help improve local life.
“This is one of those projects that proves it's viable and demonstrates the technology,” Ora said.
Leveraging what they learned from their aeroponics experience, Ola and his students will begin building a training course and an AI-supported app that will help anyone in the community who wants to get into aeroponics make a plan.
“They can use our resources to find the best seeds and the best products to grow for maximum yield,” Ora said. “This is just one example of technology and AI that could potentially make a difference in that problem.”
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