AI for Good

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As part of my exploration into AI, I was really interested in exploring how AI is being used to do good in the world, so I completed the AI for Good Specialization offered by DeepLearning.AI on Coursera.  It is a 3 course specialization that looks at how AI can be used in Public Health, Climate Change and Disaster Management.  The courses are taught by Dr. Robert Monarch who uses his deep expertise in AI and also disaster management to explain important concepts related to AI for Good.  The definition of AI for Good as Monarch explains is the application of AI to solve some of the biggest problems of the world related to the environment, health, justice and humanitarian action with the goal of using AI to prevent, mitigate or resolve problems affecting human life or the environment.  One important principle that Monarch discusses at all stages of AI for Good is the Do No Harm Principle which is the understanding that everyone impacted by the project is left better off.  You can tell Monarch cares deeply about ensuring that communities and individuals get the help they need.

The courses look at a range of case studies in the real world ranging from detecting baby's cries to provide medical diagnosis to air quality monitoring, wind and solar power forecasting, biodiversity monitoring, and emergency response translation applications.  For each of the case studies Monarch uses the following framework to explore the process practitioners take to develop solutions.

Additionally, there are labs to run AI models in Jupyter notebooks to help participants get a sense of the steps taken in each of the case students to use the data collected  and processed through machine learning using predictive AI.  We also hear from researchers around the world with spotlights on global organizations like Microsoft for Good and Haiti on the Rise where practitioners explain their research and the impact it is making. Dr. Monarch is a patient host and through the repetition of applying the framework to each of the case studies you really get a sense of the possibility and process for using AI for Good.