Royal Society of Edinburgh inductee Prof. Barbara Grosz on "Health Care Coordination and Health Literacy: The Need for Smart Multi-agent Systems"

Royal Society of Edinburgh inductee Prof. Barbara Grosz on "Health Care Coordination and Health Literacy: The Need for Smart Multi-agent Systems"
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This is a past event

Distinguished Visitor:

Prof. Grosz will be inducted at the Royal Society of Edinburgh as a Corresponding Fellow

The RSE has 1600 Fellows, of which 66 are Corresponding Fellows.  Prof. Grosz will be the fifth woman Corresponding Fellow.

Abstract:

I recently argued that Turing, were he alive now, would conjecture differently than he did in 1950, and I suggested a new Turing challenge question - Is it imaginable that a computer (agent) team member could behave, over the long term and in uncertain, dynamic environments, in such a way that people on the team will not notice it is not human? In the last several decades, the field of multi-agent systems has developed a vast array of techniques for cooperation and collaboration as well as for agents to handle adversarial or strategic situations. Even so, current generation agents are unlikely to meet this new challenge except in very simple situations.  Meeting the challenge requires new algorithms and novel plan representations.  This talk will explore the implications of this new Turing question in the context of my group's recent work on developing intelligent agents able to work on a team with health care providers and patients to improve care coordination.  Our goal is to enable systems to support a diverse, evolving team in formulating, monitoring and revising a shared care plan that operates on multiple time scales in uncertain environments. The coordination of care for children with complex conditions, which is a compelling societal need, is presented as a model environment in which to develop and assess such systems. The talk will focus in particular on challenges of interruption management, information sharing, and crowdsourcing for health literacy.

Bio:

Professor Grosz has made seminal contributions to the fields of natural-language processing and multi-agent systems. She developed some of the earliest computer dialogue systems and established the research field of computational modeling of discourse.  Her work on models of collaboration helped establish that field and provides the framework for several collaborative multi-agent and human-computer interface systems.  Her research currently is focused on exploring ways collaborative multi-agent systems and collaborative interfaces can improve the systems patients and physicians use for health care planning and communication.Grosz is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the Association for Computing Machinery, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  In 2009, she received the ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award for “fundamental contributions to research in natural language processing and in multi-agent systems, for her leadership in the field of artificial intelligence, and for her role in the establishment and leadership of interdisciplinary institutions.”Grosz is also known for her role in the establishment and leadership of interdisciplinary institutions, and she is widely respected for her contributions to the advancement of women in science.  From 2007-2011, Professor Grosz served as interim dean and then dean of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and from 2001-2007 she was the Institute’s first dean of science, designing and building its science program.

Speaker
Professor Barbara Grosz, Harvard University, Computer Science
Hosted by
Adam Wyner
Venue
Meston Building lecture room 6 (enter Library side; ground floor; in the corner)