Artificial intelligence is changing everything.

 

Here’s what we know:

• We are all getting older, and we are fast ageing across the globe.

• Technology is ubiquitous.

• Access to digital services is increasingly necessary to participate in society.

• The digital divide is real, and probably widening.

• Digital exclusion has many adverse impacts including access to healthcare, economic opportunities, educational opportunities.

• AI holds great ‘promise’.

• AI is here and many of us, including me, are struggling to know what this means.

• AI has something to do with machine learning and is based on an unfathomable amount of data, images and conversations out there.

• Discourse suggests that AI systems amplify existing inequities and entrench racism, sexism, and power differentials.

• Stereotypes, biases and prejudices are baked into the vast collection of data that is now available for AI to ‘learn’ from.

 

Here’s what we don’t know:

• What about ageism? What impact will ageism have on the ‘promise’ of AI for older people?

• Will AI entrench pervasive biases, stereotypes and discriminatory assumptions of older people and guide us further away from digital equity and equitable access to services and information? If so, how?

• What do we do about it?

 

This paper will draw on a paper produced by the WHO’s Global Campaign to Combat Ageism, Ageism in Artificial Intelligence for Health

https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/351503/9789240040793-eng.pdf?sequence=1

to help guide our thinking on this.

 

The presentation will bring together some of the emerging research and themes about ageism and Artificial Intelligence. It will provide a framework for thinking about how we might identify and eliminate the ageism inherent in the design, development, use and evaluation of AI and its application for older people in our real world.

Dr Marlene Krasovitsky is a passionate advocate and campaigner against ageism and building intergenerational solidarity. Marlene is currently a consultant to the World Health Organisation’s Global Campaign to Combat Ageism.

Prior to joining the WHO, Marlene was the Director and Co-Chair of EveryAGE Counts, Australia’s coalition-led campaign against ageism. Previously, Marlene was the Director of Willing to Work, the National Inquiry into Employment Discrimination Against Older Australians and Australians with Disability with the Australian Human Rights Commission.

 

Marlene has also worked in Commonwealth and State Governments in Australia in a range of policy and operational roles as well as a number of major public inquiries including the Review into the Treatment of Women in the Australian Defence Force and the Special Commission of Inquiry into Child Protection Services in NSW.

 

Marlene has a PhD from Sydney University, an Executive Masters of Public Administration (ANZSOG), a Masters of Business Administration (University of Technology, Sydney) and is a registered psychologist.