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Life and Death Decision-making through Algorithms
with
Professor David Rehkopf and Derek Ouyang, Stanford University
Sustainability Now! Sunday, February 2nd, 2025, 5-6 PM
Over the past few years, we’ve heard a lot about artificial intelligence and the algorithms that support public policy, decision making and resource allocations. By processing reams of presumably neutral data, the algorithms are supposed to produce unbiased results. But we’ve also heard concerns about the algorithms themselves: what unrecognized assumptions go into their construction and how they can produce different outcomes depending on programmer choices about the data that goes into them.
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Professor David Rehkopf of the Department of Epidemiology & Population Health at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and Derek Ouyang, Executive Director of City Systems and Senior Research Manager in Stanford University’s Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab. We’ll be taking about what algorithms are, how they are used to promote environmental justice and guide public funding for disadvantaged communities, and why they can produce different results depending on what goes into them and what comes out.
What am I part of here or am I part of anything, everything or nothing somewhere or nowhere