AB-Nexus Collaboration Award

Dr. Pressman and Dr. Peter Foltz were recently granted an AB-Nexus award for collaboration between the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus and the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Institute of Cognitive Science.  The grant will focus on development of artificial intelligence to predict disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, thereby helping ensure early and accurate diagnosis.  

While other groups have developed similar technology, this technology is not always easy to understand.  For example, while artificial intelligence may say that someone is at an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, it may not say why it believes that, leaving physicians and patients without a clear idea of best way to mitigate that risk.  Furthermore, without a clear understanding of the artificial intelligence’s “reasoning,” there is a risk of exacerbating societal inequities.  

In order to make the artificial intelligence as transparent as possible, the project funded by this grant aims to engage medical providers as well as diverse stakeholders in discussions to help develop and validate this technology, making it interpretable, transparent, and eventually clinically useful.