Ought to synthetic intelligence be allowed to make care choices for sufferers? Although the way forward for AI might conjure up doomsday visions of robots and computer systems intent on rendering human existence superfluous, the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Studying in Well being (Jameel Clinic) addressed questions surrounding the usage of AI in well being by way of their inaugural summer season program targeted on educating highschool college students. 

The Jameel Clinic Summer time Program, which happened July 10-21, accepted a complete of 51 college students from primarily Boston-area faculties, with a dedication to reaching college students from numerous backgrounds.  

This system, which cut up college students up into two cohorts of 25 college students for every week, had core choices together with programs like “Intro to Python,” “Intro to Scientific AI,” and “Intro to Drug Discovery” whereas additionally facilitating journeys to numerous native establishments such because the Museum of Science Boston, Massachusetts Common Hospital, Janssen Prescription drugs, and Amgen. 

“Organizing this boot camp had a private significance to me. When my household immigrated to Israel, it was robust — my mother and father and I labored minimal wage jobs to outlive,” Faculty of Engineering Distinguished Professor and Jameel Clinic AI school lead Regina Barzilay remembers. “Going to school reworked my life. Most of the college students in this system have comparable backgrounds. I hope that exposing them to thrilling science at MIT will open new alternatives for them.” 

“I’m not speculated to be right here immediately,” said Collin Stultz, the Nina T. and Robert H. Rubin Professor at MIT and Jameel Clinic principal investigator, on turning into each a pc scientist and heart specialist. In his lecture, Stultz spoke of the hardships his mother and father endured after immigrating to New York from Jamaica. He emphasised that he and his members of the family had by no means thought to use to colleges like Harvard College, pondering of it as a college for “individuals just like the Kennedys” till Stultz received the thought to use from a classmate who was planning to use.  

“It’s my hope that the interactions between college students within the Jameel Clinic Summer time Program and MIT school will spotlight the wealth of alternatives accessible on the intersection of laptop science and medication,” Stultz says. 

Because of a beneficiant present from Joseph Bates and Kristin Loeffler by way of their AI for Humanity Basis, the Jameel Clinic was capable of supply the summer season program for gratis and scale back the monetary limitations for college kids from under-resourced backgrounds. Bates shared that on the age of 13 he was found by a psychology professor at Johns Hopkins College and have become the primary teenager to enter the college. “I had been doing an satisfactory, however not good, job in a harmful Baltimore Metropolis public junior highschool,” Bates says. “Being at Hopkins was fantastic, socially and intellectually, and it led me to a pc science PhD at Cornell College, then CS professor at Carnegie Mellon College. Somebody taking an curiosity actually mattered, and it modified my life.” 

In response to the Nationwide Science Basis, the U.S. STEM workforce progressively diversified between 2011 and 2021, with elevated illustration of girls and underrepresented college students of shade. However within the college-educated workforce, a 2021 report confirmed that simply 16 % of engineers had been girls and 16 % of underrepresented college students of shade — Hispanic, Black, and American Indian or Indigenous Alaskan people — had been employed in science and engineering occupations with not less than a bachelor’s diploma. 

Angely Mejia Martinez, a rising junior at Chelsea Excessive Faculty and aspiring physician, highlighted Jameel Clinic chair and MIT Institute Professor Phillip Sharp’s speak as one in all her favorites. Sharp spoke about rising up on a small farm in rural Kentucky earlier than setting off on his profession in science, which ultimately led to his 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medication. “I actually received impressed by that as a result of once I was little, many individuals would say ‘I don’t assume you are able to do this,’ and I used to be all the time like ‘I can do that,’” Martinez says. “I feel I can obtain something I set my thoughts into.” 

“It was very surreal as a result of I didn’t assume I’d be right here,” Priyani Rawal, a rising junior finding out info know-how at Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical Faculty, says. Rawal’s favourite class was Barzilay’s Intro to AI/ML lecture. “I used to be so amazed by what we had been studying … it made me impressed to enter [the machine learning] subject.” 

Adam Nouri, a rising senior at Pioneer Constitution Faculty II, signed up for this system after receiving an e-mail from his laptop science instructor. Earlier than making use of, Nouri had thought of enrolling in a summer season course for programming at Bunker Hill Group Faculty, an possibility sometimes supplied for gratis to Pioneer college students. Nevertheless, Nouri shortly realized that free enrollment was solely accessible in the course of the faculty 12 months and says it might have value round $800 for him to enroll in the summertime. If he hadn’t gotten into the Jameel Clinic Summer time Program, Nouri believes he would have continued working at his part-time service job for the remainder of the summer season whereas attempting to code a recreation or construct a pc along with his buddies in his free time. “Once I received into the [Jameel Clinic Summer Program], I used to be really actually excited,” Nouri remembers. “Now I really feel like I’ve a clearer path I wish to pursue.” 

As a part of their last group undertaking shows given on the final day of this system, college students had been assigned AI instruments utilized in medical settings or drug discovery, like PathAI or AlphaFold2, and requested to elucidate their assigned device together with its potential advantages and dangers to a audience of their selection. 

“There’s a heavy emphasis positioned not solely on innovation in science, well being care and know-how, but in addition on collaboration throughout disciplines,” Jay Ananth, a rising junior at Troy Excessive Faculty, says. “Throughout the summer season program, I used to be taught AI and well being care not as a highschool pupil, however as a peer — a fellow researcher — who has the power to innovate and make a change.” 

Serena Hu, a rising junior at Lincoln Sudbury Excessive Faculty, felt much less uncertainty about her future after attending this system. “I all the time wished to strive new issues in order that I may discover one thing that I like to do, however I can fairly confidently say that I discovered it right here,” Hu says. “They’re not simply instructing you the fabric — they’re additionally inspiring you.” 

The Jameel Clinic Summer time Program was organized by Ignacio Fuentes, Alex Ouyang, and Marinalva Smith. Maggie Wang, Antonella Catanzaro, Tien Pham, Ciarra Brodie, Rohan Kundargi, Christina Moscat, and the Mass Common Brigham workforce helped to supervise and contribute to the success of this system. Instructors included Pulkit Agrawal, Sharifa Alghowinem, Shrooq Alsenan, Manisha Bahl, Regina Barzilay, Rebecca Boiarsky, Felix Faltings, Florian Fintelmann, Marzyeh Ghassemi, Susan Hockfield, Insoo Hyun, Noah Jones, Ila Kumar, Peter Mikhael, Carles Monterrubio, Rosalind Picard, Tiffany Pereira Portela, Phillip Sharp, Hannes Stärk, Vinith Suriyakumar, Oliver Thiel, Randi Williams, Jeremy Wohlwend, and Rachel Wu.