NORFOLK, Va. — With ChatGPT, self-driving cars, automated speech and robots, artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere.
Lawmakers in Washington are starting to debate the future of the technology, with possible changes happening this summer.
“We will see more change in the next 10 years than we have seen in the last 50 years,” said President Biden while in California discussing the need for more debate on AI.
While major discussions could take shape on Capitol Hill, major developments are already happening at Old Dominion University.
In fact, the work being done inside the Vision Lab at ODU’s Batten College of Engineering and Technology has ranked among the best in the world, playing a role in the future of AI.
Professor Khan Iftekharuddin is the director of the Vision Lab. Under his advisement, graduate students program robots to recognize facial expressions, which is part of larger research to detect autism spectrum disorder (ASD) early.
Also in the medical space, the team is paving the way in tumor detection. Their machine learning methods have helped improve brain scans and analyze thousands of tissue specimens.
“This will help all those physicians, oncologists, radiologists [sift through imaging] so that they can spend more time with their patients,” said one of the graduate students.
While these are examples of AI taking shape in the medical field, some people are concerned that the technology is going too far.
In fact, President Joe Biden was in Silicon Valley this week discussing the topic with industry experts. The White House’s website also says its administration is crafting a national artificial intelligence strategy.
According to Scripps National News Correspondent Joe St. George, the White House is working to implement an AI Bill of Rights that would mandate informing Americans when AI is being used on them, giving Americans the right to have a human interaction if they wish.
“My own perspective on this is [AI is] not going to take over. However, it needs boundaries,” said Professor Iftekharuddin. “We need to have proper understanding. We need to have proper boundaries, so that this cannot be exploited and misused.”
ODU’s Vision Lab is also working closely with Eastern Virginia Medical Center so the findings from their research can be used in practice.
