About 50 researchers, students and industry professionals gathered in the Lurie Engineering Center on Tuesday for a discussion about the ethics of artificial intelligence. The forum,  titled “From Theory to Practice: Building Ethical and Trustworthy AI,” was hosted by the Michigan Institute for Data Science and featured three keynote speakers as well as “lightning talks” and panel discussions.

Information Ph.D. candidate Kwame Porter Robinson spoke at the forum about creating computing infrastructures that are based on meeting the needs of communities. He said AI policy often uses a top-down approach, focusing on making changes at the government or corporate level, rather than a bottom-up approach that would start with community members and workers.

“Typically in AI ethics … there’s a preference for top-down approaches or points of intervention in terms of policy or … regulation, but there are alternatives,” Porter Robinson said. “You can begin with workers, you can begin with people that are directly affected and ask them what they think.”

Keynote speaker Jenna Wiens, associate professor of computer science and engineering, talked about the potential dangers of AI bias in health care settings. She explained that artificial intelligence programs can pick up on certain correlations — for example, that patients with pacemakers are more likely to be diagnosed with heart failure — but those correlations are not necessarily useful in making a diagnosis.

“It’s a problem because this model learned this association of having a pacemaker and being at greater risk of heart failure,” Wiens said. “If the pacemaker wasn’t there, the clinician would still diagnose the individual with heart failure. The pacemaker is not a clinically relevant radiological finding.”

One of the forum’s speakers, Elisa Ngan, assistant professor of practice in urban technology at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, said AI bias is not going to disappear completely so it is important to consider new ways to overcome bias and create software that minimizes harm.

“I think it’s important to realize that the question of bias is not necessarily going to go away entirely,” Ngan said. “So thinking about what the real problem is and the sort of operation (that) is needed to deploy a solution and whether we need to innovate on the way that we work itself, to transition, you know, from agile development to a whole different way of working as a team is what’s necessary to build safe software.”

Merve Hickok, adjunct lecturer with the School of Information and president of the Center for AI & Digital Policy, was a keynote speaker at the forum. In an interview with The Daily after the event, she said she believes it is important to prioritize equity when setting policies on AI.

“So, where we are using (AI) for the criminal justice system or access to government benefits, access to education, access to credit, is it impacting our civil rights?” Hickock said. “Is it undermining our civil rights? Is it discriminating against certain groups? I think those spaces where there’s a higher risk of undermining the rights should be regulated first.”

According to Hickok, a key challenge to enacting AI regulations is a lack of concrete action from lawmakers and federal agencies.

“You see a lot of conversations, but not necessarily implementation,” Hickok said. “So you’re asking all federal agencies as well as lawmakers to ensure that these conversations are happening and regulations are put in place. You can talk (for) months and months about the impact and the risks of AI. However, because it’s already impacting civil rights and human rights, you should have protections in place.”

 Ngan said she believes interdisciplinary work is important in creating better AI systems and ethical frameworks.

“I feel like everyone really wants to solve this issue, but we’re all kind of working in our disciplinary silos,” Ngan said. “Trying to find a way outside of that to capture more of the context and the human problems is important to creating a system that’s actually viable in the long term and that doesn’t burden individuals who don’t have access to designing those systems — who are not lawyers, designers, engineers, but nonetheless are impacted by it.”

Summer News Editor Abigail VanderMolen can be reached at vabigail@umich.edu. 

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A recent study conducted by a team of University of Michigan medical researchers may help to identify which patients suffering from acute liver failure need liver transplants to live and which can survive without them, helping hospitals more effectively allocate organ donations. With the overall mortality rate of acute liver failure reaching almost 50%, the researchers set out to find a way to tell which patients most urgently need a liver transplant and which can likely survive without.

The study observed blood samples and medical records from 270 patients admitted to hospitals with acute liver failure. Through their research, the team discovered that concentrations of a protein called carbamoyl phosphate synthetase 1, or CPS1, helped predict which patients would survive without a liver transplant.

Robert Fontana, professor of internal medicine and one of the lead researchers of the study, told The Michigan Daily in an interview about what he hoped to accomplish through this research.

“We collected blood samples from patients who got admitted to the hospital (at the University of Michigan) and in 13 other major medical centers, and then we tested the blood samples from the day of admission and day three of the hospitalization and so on,” Fontana said. “We wanted to see if we could come up with a blood test that might predict who’s going to likely recover and leave the hospital without needing a transplant or dying, and those who are at high risk of needing a transplant or dying.”

Fontana said the study found that CPS1 levels helped indicate who would need a liver transplant in the near future.

“The bottom line of what we found is that the patients who had a higher level of the CPS1 protein in their blood are more likely to die or need a liver transplant over the next three weeks compared to people who have lower levels (of CPS1),” Fontana said.

Bishr Omary, professor of biomedical science at Rutgers University and adjunct professor of molecular & integrative physiology and internal medicine at the University of Michigan, also helped conduct the research. Omary told The Daily that measuring CPS1 levels has the potential to help more patients survive acute liver failure.

“If (CPS1 levels) are high when (patients) first come to the hospital, or if it’s higher on day three versus on day one, those individuals unfortunately are quite sick,” Omary said. “So measuring this protein, that’s really one of the major findings (of the study). It’s a good marker for those patients with (acute liver failure) who are most likely to survive because the levels are low, or most likely to need a liver transplant or unfortunately die because CPS1 levels are high.”

Although there is potential for an independent blood test to come out of this research, Fontana told The Daily that this research is still in its initial stages.

“This is not something that, if you came to the hospital tomorrow, that we would be using, because to get a new blood test from the ground up, it has to go through all kinds of rigorous validation and testing in multiple patient groups by the FDA,” Fontana said. “The first part of this process is discovering the protein, developing the test and then getting it to the point of testing it in a couple hundred people.”

Rising Pharmacy senior Alex Dodson worked under Dr. Fontana on this research at the University. In an email to The Daily, Dodson said participating in undergraduate research has helped him realize his passion for the healthcare industry.

“Working in undergraduate research has really helped me find my passion in medicine,” Dodson wrote. “It allows you to work in a comprehensive healthcare environment and learn what each person’s role in the process involves.”

Dodson said he encourages other undergraduate students to participate in research, especially if they have yet to find their academic passion.

“Other undergrads should definitely be excited about the research at U-M because, not only does it provide valuable work experience, but it also allows you to stay connected with professionals in your field,” Dodson wrote. “Networking with these individuals will help you find where your passions are, and getting to the bottom of why each person chose their career path can be a lightbulb moment for undergraduate students who have not completely decided on their career.”

Summer Managing News Editor Mary Corey can be reached at mcorey@umich.edu.

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The state of Michigan finalized its plans to build the University of Michigan Electric Vehicle Center on April 27 after allocating $130 million for the project in the FY 2023 budget. The plan includes $60 million for campus infrastructure; specifically, an updated Battery Lab facility on North Campus. It also allocates $50 million for supporting technology research and development and $20 million for workforce education.

Engineering Dean Alec D. Gallimore appointed Alan Taub, materials science and engineering professor and former vice president of Global Research and Development at General Motors,  as director of the new center. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Taub said the center will work with companies in the auto industry as they transition from combustion engines to electric vehicles.

“We are experiencing a transformation in the (automotive) industry from the internal combustion engine to battery electric vehicles,” Taub said. “That involves a wide range of activities that are important not only to the University, but to the state. One is making sure our companies are at the bleeding edge of this technology change. So from the $130 million, we have $50 million … that will go to research (which) will be driven by our industry affiliates.”

Taub said the $20 million allocated to workforce education will help with the retraining of the existing workforce as they transition from working with combustion vehicles to electric vehicles. 

“On the workforce side, we’re going to have a big transition in manufacturing and engineering and design jobs as we move from today’s vehicles to battery electric,” Taub said. “We’ll have activities within the University on expanding our curricula for electric vehicles, but also activities to help retrain the existing workforce.”

The $60 million toward infrastructure will facilitate collaboration with the U-M Battery Lab to create Battery Lab 2.0, which will contain state-of-the-art equipment and will be located, for the time being, in a building leased off campus.

Battery Lab Director Greg Less told The Daily in an interview that the Battery Lab and EV Center will work closely together in a mutually beneficial partnership.

“We’re going to be all but indistinguishable from the EVC,” Less said. “We’ll be offering capabilities for people to come in and do research and prototyping and testing, and they’ll be getting us out to a broader audience and helping us to find those teaching opportunities, research opportunities that maybe we haven’t had before.”

According to Taub, Battery Lab 2.0 will have a welder donated by Manz, a company that produces laser welding equipment. This will give the Battery Lab the capability to create battery modules made of multiple battery cells.

“(The welder is) already here in a big crate, and it’s going to be the first piece of equipment we’re setting up in the lease site,” Taub said. “Not only will it be new, advanced state-of-(the)-art equipment to make cells — we’re now expanding our capability to be able to weld them into modules, so we’re really excited about that.”

The current Battery Lab building and equipment will remain in use once Battery Lab 2.0 is operational. Less said this means the lab can utilize the pilot lines — production lines that can produce small quantities of products — at both facilities for research and experiential learning.

“(The new pilot line) will relieve some of the demand strain that we’re seeing, but it will also give us opportunity for classes,” Less said. “Having a second pilot line, we can keep the research going on one while teaching on the other or tinkering on the other… this gives us so many more opportunities.”

Rising engineering junior Chloe Acosta was the powertrain director of MRacing, the U-M Formula Society of Automotive Engineers team, and will be their technical director next year. Since 2022, they have only created and raced electric cars. Acosta said they have previously used the original Battery Lab for research and testing, but are excited by the possibilities of the new facility.

“(Typically) we will take the cells that we plan to use for our upcoming battery pack to that research lab (and) we’ll do some tests on the cells,” Acosta said. “That’s been really useful for us, so it’d be great to have access to that kind of center where they have more equipment to do testing that can help us … have a better characterized and modeled battery pack overall.”

Acosta said she believes the learning opportunities offered by the EV center will help students feel more prepared to enter the electric vehicle industry after graduation.

“Having the opportunity for people to learn about batteries (and) electric vehicles … earlier on in (their) career is absolutely incredible if it could happen,” Acosta said. “I think the EV center could potentially promote that and give that as an opportunity to students who know they want to go in that direction, because if you come in and you’re a freshman, you’re like, ‘I want to work in the electric vehicle industry.’ (If) you don’t learn about battery modeling until you’re a senior, then how prepared are you?” 

Emerson Miller, a recent Engineering graduate and former MRacing technical director, is now working for Our Next Energy, a battery company in Novi, Michigan. Miller said he felt the Battery Lab was very useful to MRacing, and that the $130 million investment in electric vehicle research and facilities will place the University at the forefront of this rising industry. 

“I’m just really excited to see that the University is leading the way on this issue and is being proactive rather than reactive in the investment side of things,” Miller said. “I think it’s going to make a big difference.” 

The EV Center will also collaborate with other U-M departments, including Mcity, the University’s autonomous vehicle testing facility. The EV Center and Mcity are still in the early stages of determining what a collaboration would look like.

In an interview with The Daily, Mcity director Henry Liu said a challenge of combining electric and autonomous vehicles is that computing power competes for the same battery power as the vehicle’s motor, limiting battery life.

“We’re competing to utilize the same battery power and so that need(s) to be coordinated and optimized (in terms of) the usage of the power,” Liu said. “It’s not only just the battery itself, but also we need to look at the vehicle as a whole to see how to distribute the power usage, how to optimize the power usage.”

Taub said the center is important in helping the state of Michigan, home to the “Big Three” automotive companies, hold onto its recognition as a leader in the automotive industry.

“It’s critical that (Michigan retains) that core capability and recognition and brand,” Taub said. “One reason the state made this investment is to make sure not only the University, but the region remains at the forefront of this mobility revolution.”

Miller said he feels a personal connection to Michigan’s automotive industry, having grown up in the state.

“I grew up here, and just down the street from the Ford headquarters actually,” Miller said. “So the automotive industry has kind of always been in the background of what I was doing … There’s just such a rich history of automotive excellence here, and we take a lot of pride in that.” 

Acosta said she thinks the EV Center will enhance students’ learning experience and affirm the transition within the industry toward electric vehicles. 

“The EV Center is a great thing to add to the University and I have a lot of hope for what it will provide to the students from both a project team perspective and a student curriculum perspective,” Acosta said. “I’m glad the University is doing it and I think it also will solidify the movement … to the electric-vehicle-dominated automotive industry.” 

Summer News Editors Astrid Code and Abigail VanderMolen can be reached at astridc@umich.edu and vabigail@umich.edu.

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As artificial intelligence software like ChatGPT continues to grow in popularity, environmental advocates have raised concerns over the high levels of energy consumed by AI. In a step toward addressing this issue, U-M alum Jie You, Rackham student Jae-Won Chung and Mosharaf Chowdhury, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, developed Zeus, an open-source framework that analyzes the energy efficiency of training AI. According to the study, implementation of this software could reduce AI energy consumption by up to 75%.

Zeus works by taking into account any time constraints for the AI training process and then figuring out the most energy-efficient way to complete the training within that time frame. 

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Chowdhury said increasing data consumption during training, which is necessary for AI to function, contributes to high levels of energy consumption. According to Chowdhury, reducing energy usage by even a small amount during the training process has a positive environmental effect, while maintaining minimal impact on its timeframe. 

“What we found is that for different models, even if you slightly reduce the power they are drawing — instead of drawing 300 watts, they are drawing 250 watts — the speed of computation (doesn’t) get affected significantly, meaning (the training) will still finish roughly at the same time,” Chowdhury said. 

Chung said the research team initially struggled to find a balance between energy use reduction and training speed.

“We found out that if you reduce energy too much, the training gets too long,” Chung said. “So we developed our problem formulation where we find a sweet spot between reducing energy and not inflating computation time too much.”

Rising LSA senior Jackson Leb is the founder of OpenMI, a student organization focused on AI and machine learning. Leb said it is difficult to decrease energy consumption by AI because of the sheer amount of data AI uses. 

“These machine learning and artificial intelligence models that we see today, like ChatGPT and a lot of the more common ones, are built and function off these huge amounts of data that are pulled from data centers,” Leb said. “(It) requires a lot of computational power to get all that data, and a lot of computational power means that there’s a lot of energy consumption which is going to have a detrimental effect on the environment. There’s no … way to escape (the negative impacts) if you’re using that much energy.”

Chowdhury said Zeus allows the users to decide what trade-off they want to make — they can decide between saving more energy or having their AI trained quicker, depending on their specific needs. 

“You can decide that I want to save some energy, and I’m fine with taking a little bit more time, or vice versa,” Chowdhury said. “Depending on what you want to optimize, Zeus allows someone to decide that maybe (they are) fine with (the training) taking one more day, but this will save maybe 20% more energy.” 

Along with Chung, Rackham student Zhenning Yang and U-M alum Luoxi Meng developed a complementary software called Chase that aims to further reduce the carbon footprint of AI by looking not at just the amount of energy consumed, but also where the energy is coming from. This software increases the training speed when low-carbon energy is available and decreases it when there is higher-carbon energy available.

Chung said Chase works the same way Zeus does, speeding up when there is more clean energy available and slowing down when there is less.

“Carbon intensity changes throughout the day,” Chung said. “For example, when the sun is up, solar power is up, so electricity tends to get greener compared to night. (Chase uses) the same mechanism that Zeus developed, which is slowing down the GPU so that it consumes less energy but slightly slower. We do that while the job is training. When it’s daytime and we have greater energy, we speed up the GPU … but during night we don’t, so we slow down the GPU automatically.”

Chowdhury said the research team hopes the creation of Zeus will spark further conversation and action around the environmental effects of AI .

“Historically, what we found is that even though software consumes a lot of energy, there hasn’t been that much work (on how to make it more sustainable),” Chowdhury said. “It’s our small part that we are trying to play, but I feel like still (our contribution is) quite sizable (as) close to one percentage point of total energy consumption of the world can be saved.”

Summer News Editor Rebecca Lewis can be reached at rebeccl@umich.edu. 

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A recent study conducted by the University of Michigan Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering program found that methane and carbon dioxide emissions in the Gulf of Mexico are double what has been reported by official inventories. This study was conducted alongside researchers from Stanford University, Scientific Aviation, Carbon Mapper and the Environmental Defense Fund. According to the study, these increased emissions are the result of the use of shallow-water central-hub facilities that extract oil and gas. 

The Gulf of Mexico is the largest offshore fossil fuel production basin in the United States. This production is done through platforms, which are facilities that extract oil and gas from rock formations beneath the seabed. Then, flaring is used to burn off waste and excess gas in order to protect the equipment and system processes, and venting releases those emissions directly into the atmosphere.

In an email to The Michigan Daily, Assistant Research Scientist Genevieve Plant explained the process and importance of flaring. 

“Ideally, the flame in flare converts almost all the methane in the gas to carbon dioxide, which is also a greenhouse gas but has a much lower global warming potential compared to methane,” Plant said. “If there is gas that needs to be disposed of, from a climate perspective, it is better to burn the gas using a high efficiency flare to convert the methane to carbon dioxide, thus reducing how much methane makes it to the atmosphere.” 

The size of the platform relies on the depth of the water it is located in. For shallow waters, central-hub facilities are used to collect oil and gas. For mid-depth waters there are mid-sized platforms, and for deep waters, newer, high-volume platforms are used. These central-hub facilities are the main contributor to harmful levels of shallow-water production emissions. 

The Environmental Protection Agency reports on emissions sourced in both state and federal waters, including the Gulf of Mexico. These reports are based on total emissions, which are not specific to any particular site, making it hard to track the culprit of these increased emissions 

To get measurements for this study, the U-M research team flew an airplane over the Gulf of Mexico. This data, along with data from previous field surveys, was used to get the largest sample size possible. 

Eric Kort, CLaSP associate professor and principal investigator of the F³UEL project, published a paper on this study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences with Plant and U-M alum Alan Negron, who worked as a graduate student research assistant for CLaSP.

This study proposes three ways to mitigate environmental damage from gas and oil production: replacing venting with efficient flaring of methane byproducts, repairing damaged equipment and plugging and abandoning irreparable sites.

In an email to The Daily, Kort wrote about the implications of this research for the future of environmental policies surrounding oil and gas production. 

“With our measurements we now know the actual climate impact of current production in the Gulf of Mexico,” Kort said. “Direct observations identified the excess methane emissions so future observations can be used to evaluate if mitigation or legislative measures are effective.” 

Negron led the data collection and analysis processes on the research team and helped design the sites that the team visited. Negron told The Daily the metrics used in the study will aid policymakers in gauging the impact of climate change.

“The Carbon Intensity measurement is a baseline for the statements in our study,” Negron said. “This way, numbers can be compared between sites and the climate impact can be easily translated,” Negron said. “Regulators can now decide what to do with these numbers.” 

Plant also commented on the role this study plays in the future of environmental policy. 

“This study highlights the important role that measurements can play in not only improving our understanding of how methane is released to our atmosphere but also how measurement frameworks can potentially inform effective mitigation strategies,” Plant said.

Daily Staff News Reporter Emma Lapp can be reached at emmalapp@umich.edu.

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Hundreds of University of Michigan students, faculty and research mentors crowded in the Michigan League on Wednesday for the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program’s annual Spring Symposium. Research presentations stretched across 11 disciplines and took the form of poster, oral and non-poster presentations. 

UROP participants apply to the program during their freshman and sophomore years and are paired with a faculty mentor upon their acceptance to the program. Students are then given lists of projects to choose from, ranging from disciplines like arts and humanities to engineering and physical sciences. Marcus Collins, UROP Events and Communications coordinator, said the goal of the program is to connect undergraduate students with hands-on research opportunities and professional development resources.

“We target freshman students because when they come in as a freshman, they don’t know anybody at the University,” Collins said. “Coming in through UROP, they meet faculty and meet mentors to help them get through their four academic years of school … It’s a good experience to have that.”

Each mentee is also paired with a peer facilitator who leads a research seminar during the year and grades them during their final presentations. Engineering senior Taylor Scott participated in UROP during her underclassman years and now serves as a facilitator within the program. She said her role has inspired her to continue research after graduating from the University.

“My biggest takeaway is being proud of my students and all the work they’ve done,” Scott said. “It really inspires me to do research when I graduate. I help my students (figure out) what they want to do coming out of this experience. Do they want to continue with research? Is this their right passion or career field?”

Kinesiology sophomore Makayla Kelly presented her poster project about post-surgery tissue construction engineering during the fourth session of the symposium. Kelly told The Daily she hopes to continue spreading awareness about similar procedures in her future research.

“I’m trying to advance and really get the word out about how helpful (regenerative) medicine can be,” Kelly said. “Going forward with my research, I’m staying in the lab and am going to work further with this specific project, as well as some future stuff using human cells in order to build constructs that are safe for humans.” 

Kinesiology sophomore Deena Aboul Hassan was awarded a blue ribbon during an oral presentation session. She conducted research with Rachel Bergmans, researcher at the U-M Department of Anesthesiology, Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center, on the management and experience of Black Americans with lupus. As a second-year student in the program, Aboul Hassan said her role and responsibilities have grown over her time in UROP.

“When I started as a freshman, I joined projects with Dr. Bergmans, and I made mostly dead literature reviews,” Aboul Hassan said. “Now, I’m getting more involved with using qualitative data and organizing our information into common themes. I’ve also been able to deal with the patient side as well for some of our studies, where I got to interview some patients on their experiences.”

LSA freshman Lillian Barber and LSA junior Lauren Jensen’s research project focused on orgasm rates in men and women, and found that there is not a significant difference between the two populations. Barber said research in this area can help break the stigma that exists around sex. 

“I feel like there’s a lot of stigma surrounding sex, and a lot of people are scared to talk about it, just because it’s so taboo,” Barber said. “It’s important to embrace similarities between genders rather than just highlighting the differences.”

Barber said UROP has shown her how social science research is significant and has given her the confidence to talk about her work.

“I feel like I have a lot more confidence,” Barber said. “I was nervous about doing a social sciences project because it seems less legitimate to a lot of people, but I now realize that the stuff we’re doing is super important.”

Daily Staff Reporter Sneha Dhandapani can be reached at sdhanda@umich.edu.

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When artificial-intelligence chatbot ChatGPT released in November 2022, it quickly became the fastest growing program in history, thrusting Artificial Intelligence into the spotlight of technological debates. Researchers in the social sciences are focusing their attention on AI research and development and its impacts on human society. This includes the University of Michigan, which has several student initiatives and faculty labs dedicated to understanding and administering AI. 

AI is a technical name for a computer algorithm which simulates how humans think, talk and write, but it has no idea what it is saying or why. Though they may not take over the world, AI does have the capacity to change it.

The Michigan Student Artificial Intelligence Lab is a student organization which focuses heavily on education and research surrounding artificial intelligence technology. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, LSA sophomore Asad Khan, who leads education sessions at the lab, spoke on the ways his organization keeps students engaged with AI. 

“We offer a variety of different initiatives,” Khan said. “We educate students on artificial intelligence (and) we get them exposed to some research papers. For example, they replicated a research paper, a project on deep convolutional neural networks … It’s just a good way to (get involved with) applicable code as well, by applying the (technical) knowledge and just getting a general overview of the concepts.”

Khan also spoke about ChatGPT, the ubiquitous consumer-facing AI model. ChatGPT is a language model, which is a way for computers to put together sentences and phrases using statistics. Khan added how AI can be used in a variety of ways, such as identifying handwriting and photos, in addition to being used for sports analytics, autonomous vehicles and more. Though it’s become increasingly popular, Khan said ChatGPT is only one of several kinds of intelligence model. 

“(ChatGPT is) a large language model, but definitely AI can be a lot more than that, for example, classifying handwritten digits,” Khan said. “That’s like computer vision, which is basically classifying images.”

While many people see these new capabilities to be the sign of an exciting new future shaped by AI, others see the new progress as an ethical and governance concern. As AI increasingly interfaces with the public, researchers and students at the University are focusing on responsibly administering the technology in policy. Khan spoke about why safety is important in AI considerations, and why it may be undervalued.

“Basically, you have this market that really emphasizes the progression of AI and people are afraid of this because they’re valuing progression and growth over safety,” Khan said. “So a lot of times if you value progression and growth and stuff that will increase your sales and your profits, you’re not really going to be worried about safety.”

U-M alum Jakub Kraus was a student leader at the Michigan AI Safety Initiative, a student organization that focuses on safety and policy issues related to AI, last year. In an interview with The Daily, Kraus elaborated on why governance concerns are particularly important in a modern AI environment. 

“Now, (AI progressing) is getting faster and faster, but the rate at which humans can respond to this change and build correct social structures and laws and … technical and engineering solutions for safety; I don’t see that progressing as fast,” Kraus said.

To address these gaps in AI research, Kraus said AI governance has become a focus of some U-M research initiatives, where some professors are focusing on specific ways to make AI models produce honest, appropriate content. 

“From the AI safety point of view, I think there are some professors working on responsible AI and fairness and trustworthiness,” Kraus said. “I’m excited about that … so there’s a lot of focus on risks that are right in front of us.”

Nikola Banovic, professor of computer science at the University, specializes in human-computer interaction, a field at the intersection of computer science, design and social science. Banovic spoke with The Daily on how people connect with computers, and how they use computers to connect with each other. 

“My research is actually in human-computer interaction,” Banovic said. “Just like any other HCI researcher, I’m interested in understanding people, understanding their goals, understanding their needs, understanding their desires, understanding different tasks to be performed to kind of reach those goals or satisfy those needs.”

Banovic said he is particularly interested in ethical concerns with AI, which is one of the core issues in HCI. He studies how human systems can interact properly with digital systems. One of the issues he studies is trust, or how AI is perceived as honest, consistent and reliable. 

“I think it’s important to note that trust itself is complex,” Banovic said. “And when you’re looking at definitions of what makes an AI trustworthy, a lot of those definitions come from computer science … (People will ask) ‘Is it accurate? How competent is the AI in any task that it’s supposed to do? Is it secure? Does it preserve privacy?’ So it’s more like, how (does it protect) from those external threats? “

Banovic emphasized both the importance and difficulty of creating policy to address AI safety concerns. He said though regulatory policy is the most important societal aspect of AI, implementing regulation is difficult because there are many different necessary stakeholders who need to collaborate to create effective policy. 

“The most important aspects are going to be regulation and policy,” Banovic said. “There’s absolutely no question about it. We are already seeing it. We’re seeing a lot of proposals both in the U.S. (and in the European Union) … The challenge here is that there are so many people from many different disciplines that need to come together to be able to actually craft regulations and policies.“

Daily Staff Reporter Amer Goel can be reached at amergoel@umich.edu.

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The University of Michigan recently earned the top spot for the second year in a row in the Consortium of Social Science Associations’ 2023 College & University Rankings, which decides how much federal funding is allocated to universities that conduct social and behavioral science research and development. This funding allows for the University to conduct further research on social science topics, such as how improv can improve mental health and how socioeconomic factors influence brain development.

The rankings, which are based on data from 2021, show the University received $94,689,000 in federal funding for social sciences research, surpassing the $77,911,000 total of second-ranked University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In an email to The Michigan Daily, Rebecca Cunningham, the University’s vice president for research, said the rankings reflect the hard work being done by U-M social and behavioral science researchers. 

“It is incredibly exciting to see the University of Michigan maintain its status as a national leader in social science research,” Cunningham wrote. “It is also important to remember that these types of rankings are a direct reflection of our talented researchers, who lead innovative social science projects that generate new knowledge, identify solutions to key societal challenges and positively impact communities around the world.”

Universities use a variety of external funding sources to support research projects, including federal grants researchers can apply for to fund their projects.

In an interview with The Daily, COSSA Executive Director Wendy Naus said the rankings help facilitate friendly competition between universities such as UNC and the University of Michigan.

“I always wait to see year to year who’s gonna come out on top, (the University of Michigan) or the University of North Carolina, because you guys switch back and forth,” Naus said. “Everyone else is pretty far behind. It’s usually a pretty exciting race every year when we pull the data together. It’s exciting for us and I think it’s fun for our university friends to see who comes out on top.”

According to Naus, COSSA is an advocacy organization that serves as a bridge between the research community and policymakers. Naus said the rankings began as a way to further promote funding for social sciences research.

“(COSSA has) been using federally collected data to develop the rankings since 2016, because we were really interested (to see) if there was a positive message that could be told to policymakers about how much money is going to their state and local universities for this research, and it turns out the numbers were really positive,” Naus said. 

In an email to The Daily, Cunningham said social and behavioral sciences research is important because it provides greater insight into how individuals and societies function, helping to inform the ways in which social challenges are approached.

“Social sciences research is absolutely essential because it examines relationships among individuals, as well as relationships between individuals and their societies,” Cunningham wrote. “Here at Michigan, our social scientists explore topics ranging from the healing power of words, how evolution shaped human thought and how physical spaces can encourage breakthrough ideas. When you consider some of the greatest challenges we face as a society — from systemic racism to youth firearm violence — our nation has often turned to scientific evidence and social science for answers.”

LSA junior Amanda Webster, who conducts psychology research at the University, said the rankings make her hopeful that policymakers are gaining an understanding of the importance of social sciences research.

“I think (the rankings are) pretty impressive,” Webster said. “I feel like social science as a research area is kind of undervalued compared to some other research areas. But social science permeates so much of how we communicate with others and understand the world. So, I think it’s really cool that there’s a culture shift in terms of  maybe valuing social science to a greater extent.”

Daily Staff Reporter Nadia Taeckens can be reached at taeckens@umich.edu.

The post UMich awarded most federal funding in nation for social science research appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

Though cancer is a dangerous disease that has plagued humanity for millennia, the cure for it still remains a myth, with misconceptions around it convoluting its treatment. To help address this problem, activists and scientists at the University of Michigan have been researching cancer to provide patients with the best possible care and treatment.

On average, 1,670 Americans die from cancer each day. A cellular disease that can occur anywhere in the body, cancer can occur when some of the body’s cells grow uncontrollably. This can obstruct or damage organs, body systems, blood vessels or other essential bodily functions.The study and research of cancer is called oncology, an evolving field of cellular biology, genetics and computational medicine that strives to provide the best care to cancer patients.

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, a branch of the American Cancer Society focused on policy making and stressing the importance of research collaboration has a chapter on campus which focuses on policymaking in oncology to protect cancer patients and support scientific research. Members of ACS CAN can petition policymakers for legal change and bring awareness to cancer research conducted at the University to gain funding for research. LSA sophomore Riya Gandhi, founder of the U-M chapter of ACS CAN, spoke with The Michigan Daily about how her organization operates.

“It’s a national organization, and (ACS CAN) deals with the political side of cancer advocacy,” Gandhi said. “So they deal with the ground level, grassroots advocacy, talking to lawmakers, senators, congressmen, etc., to make sure that the policies that they have on their agenda are beneficial for cancer patients and their families.” 

Along with cancer activism, Gandhi also focuses on supporting academic research on the disease. Gandhi said she collaborates closely with faculty at the University to help them gain funding for their research.

“(We looked at) researchers from the Rogel Cancer Center and then (saw) the political impacts of that research as well,” Gandhi said. “So we asked the professors what more funding would do for them and how this would help benefit cancer patients and their families.” 

The Rogel Cancer Center at the University Hospital is ranked among the best in the nation for oncology research. The Center conducts computational cancer research and delivers patient care at a quality ranked highly by U.S. News. Much of their research focuses on using statistics and genetics to deliver specialized patient care, using numerical methods to decide which medicine or treatment is best. 

In an interview with The Daily, Dr. Marcin Cieslik, an affiliate of the Rogel Cancer Center at the U-M Department of Pathology, explained why this methodology is useful in his research in cancer genetics, which is the study of different genes that might contribute to the development or proliferation of human cancer. 

“It’s important to emphasize to many readers how heterogeneous cancer is,” Cieslik said. “Most people will realize that prostate cancer is different from breast cancer. But even if you take one of those cancer types, there will be multiple subtypes and even beyond that, every individual tumor will be genetically distinct from the other, which then means that we need typically large sets of those tumors in order to start seeing patterns.”

To work with these large datasets, Cieslik and his team use statistics and computation for processing, which he said allows him to see the patterns that may be hidden under terabytes or petabytes of cancer data. 

“My lab is a cancer genomics lab, which means that we focus on cancer genomics and we use computational approaches and statistical approaches to understand cancer better,” Cieslik said. “We apply standard analysis approaches motivated by our understanding of human genetics (and) biology, but also just plain statistics to understand those mutations and their context.”

Computational genetics has informed a new kind of health care called precision health, which uses a patient’s genetic data to deliver personalized care. Using a patient’s genetic data allows medical professionals to gain a better understanding of a patient’s condition, as some symptoms or mutations are only visible at the genetic level.

“And this (genetic profile) report outlines certain therapeutic avenues that might have not been obvious from all of the previous tests that have been done on patients,” Cieslik said. “It’s oftentimes called precision oncology because the treatment of the patient should be directly informed in a precise way by the patient’s genetics (and) tumor mutation.” 

The kind of statistical analysis and methodology development used by Cieslik and his colleagues is called bioinformatics, a recent integration of data science and biology. The University’s Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics investigates the kind of problems and methods used by researchers like Cieslik. This department also collaborates closely with other U-M departments to complement their research. Dr. Lana Garmire at the U-M DCMB elaborated on this collaboration in an interview with The Daily. 

“So now I think bioinformatics is a broad term and describes the field where you utilize a large amount of high throughput data sets (and) complex types of open data to interrogate a biological mechanism and a pattern much better than the traditional experimental-only approach,” Garmire said. “So it’s kind of a very good complimentary approach.”

The complementary nature of bioinformatic research facilitates this integration of data science and biology. Many other health-related departments and schools that encounter cancer can benefit from the statistical or computational approaches used in bioinformatics. Garmire explained how she personally has collaborated with others at the University.

“Cross-disciplinary collaboration is very possible,” Garmire said. “For example, from my work, I have been collaborating with people from different domains from (the School of Dentistry) to (the College of Pharmacy) or School of Public Health and Medical School.”

Collaboration is an important theme in cancer research. Not only do different U-M departments collaborate with each other, but the University as a whole collaborates with other national institutions as well. According to Cieslik, the University is one of four data analysis centers in the country for a consortium of American institutions called the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium.

“There’s an ongoing project, which involves faculty from multiple departments,” Cieslik said. “It’s called CPTAC. … It’s a multi-institutional national effort to perform (a multi-disciplinary) characterization of tumors. The University of Michigan has one of the centers in that consortium. That center is called the PGDAC.”

This collaboration allows researchers to combine several kinds of molecular biology techniques into one stronger theory of cancer development.  The synergy between the different experts in the consortium allows cancer researchers to study the topic from different intellectual perspectives, which contributes to new findings or conclusions.

“My lab contributes the genomics expertise, Arul Chinnaiyan’s lab contributes the cancer biology experience,” Cieslik said. “Now, through this integrative lens of looking at the DNA, RNA and protein all together when trying to understand the heterogeneity of the disease, (we try) to identify biomarkers or make new discoveries about the molecular aspects of a particular cancer type.”

Daily News Reporter Amer Goel can be reached at amergoel@umich.edu. 

The post The ABCs of UMich oncology: Activism, bioinformatics, collaboration appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

Michigan Medicine announced March 15 they will be partnering with Zipline, an autonomous drone delivery service, to distribute prescription medications to some Washtenaw County patients’ homes in 2024. 

The partnership aims to help deliver pharmaceuticals across the county and is projected to double Michigan Medicine’s prescription fulfillment. The partnership is a part of Michigan Medicine’s broader strategy to expand specialty pharmacy services, which provide medications to patients with complex diseases. 

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Dana Habers, chief innovation officer of Michigan Medicine, said using a drone delivery service allows the healthcare system to address multiple goals at the same time.

“We are on a continuous quest to provide … care to our patients at the lowest possible cost,” Habers said. “We’re also looking for ways to improve our carbon footprint and provide a more environmentally friendly series of services to our patients. And finally, of course, we’re on a relentless pursuit of open access and allowing patients from all different backgrounds … to access our services and get the care of our world-class pharmacist team. So all of those things came together when we met Zipline.”

When the Zipline service launches, a new pharmacy facility in Dexter will host chargers and loading ports for the drones. Patients living within a 10-mile radius of the facility will be able to elect to receive their prescription drugs by drone. According to Habers, drones will provide faster delivery than the current system, where medications are packed to stay fresh for  48 hours and are sent to homes through delivery truck services.

“(The Zipline system) could be much more real-time,” Habers said. “(A patient) could hang up with the pharmacist and know their plan and then have the drug that day or within a much shorter period of time. So that 48-hour window we think will be significantly shorter with this kind of instant delivery model.”

In the press release, Michigan Medicine CEO Marschall S. Runge said using Zipline to produce faster deliveries will support more efficient and affordable pharmaceutical care.

“We are always looking for innovative, sustainable improvements to serve our patients,” Runge wrote. “We’re thrilled to soon provide the next frontier of care to our patients with Zipline.”

According to the press release, Zipline’s drones have completed over 540,000 deliveries for other projects, starting with blood deliveries to healthcare facilities in Rwanda. Habers said Michigan Medicine will conduct tests to ensure patient safety during deliveries prior to launching the service.

“We will conduct testing just to make sure,” Habers said. “Zipline has a very strong reputation for safe and secure deliveries. They’ve been in the field (of drone delivery) for a very long time and serving health care customers for a very long time, so we feel like there’s a synergy there with them. But we’ll start and test and monitor and see how it goes.”

According to Habers, Michigan Medicine may expand the delivery service after the initial launch, potentially using drones to deliver to other areas or to make deliveries between different Michigan Medicine facilities.

Engineering junior Aman Tahir is president of M-HEAL, a student organization aiming to use engineering and design to help medically underserved communities. Tahir told The Daily she thinks the drones could be useful and would like to know more about how they will help patients.

“I think it’s really cool,” Tahir said. “I’m curious to see what led them to think that this was a solution or (to see) what need they are addressing. Because anytime we design something we’re always thinking about what the need of the community is.”

A Michigan Medicine survey found that 30% of patients who need specialty medications would be interested in using the free service. Habers said using Zipline will not only help with reducing the health system’s environmental footprint and increasing delivery speed, but will also improve patient care.

“Ultimately, at the end of the day, the measure of success for us is to make sure that the patients have the medications they need on time, they know how to take them and they benefit from that therapy that they and their provider established,” Habers said. “That’s what our pharmacy team is here for. We’re excited to make it a little easier for patients.”

Daily Staff Reporter Nadia Taeckens can be reached at taeckens@umich.edu.

The post <strong>Michigan Medicine will use drones to deliver prescriptions in 2024</strong> appeared first on The Michigan Daily.