The Evolving Landscape of Human Research with AI - Putting Ethics to Practice

Jeffery Smith is the Deputy Director in the Certification & Testing Division at ONC where he oversees and implements policies related to the ONC Health IT Certification Program. He has served in this capacity since 2020. Previously, Jeff served as Vice President of Public Policy at the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and at the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) where he served as lead government affairs liaison to federal agency and congressional staff on matters related to health IT and health informatics. Jeff holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Kansas State University and a master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Maryland, where he specialized in healthcare and technology policy. Jeff has published in Health Affairs, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, and Applied Clinical Informatics. He also authored a chapter on Public Policy for Clinical Research Informatics 3rd Edition.

Reid Blackman, Ph.D., is the author of Ethical Machines (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022), creator and host of the podcast Ethical Machines, and Founder and CEO of Virtue, a digital ethical risk consultancy. He is also an advisor to the Canadian government on their federal AI regulations, was a founding member of EY’s AI Advisory Board, and a Senior Advisor to the Deloitte AI Institute. His work, which includes advising and speaking to organizations including AWS, US Bank, the FBI, NASA, and the World Economic Forum, has been profiled by the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, and Forbes. His written work appears in Harvard Business Review and the New York Times. Prior to founding Virtue, Reid was a professor of philosophy at Colgate University and UNC-Chapel Hill. Learn more at reidblackman.com.

Dr. Karina Vold is an assistant professor at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto (U of T). She is also a Research Lead at the U of T Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, an AI2050 Early Career Fellow with the Schmidt Sciences Foundation, a Faculty Associate at the U of T Centre for Ethics, and an Associate Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. Vold specializes in philosophy of cognitive science and philosophy of artificial intelligence, and her recent research has focused on human autonomy, cognitive enhancement, extended cognition, and the risks and ethics of AI.

Hugo Campos lives with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic heart condition that raises his risk of sudden cardiac arrest. This has driven him to become a passionate advocate for patient autonomy, empowerment, and access to medical data. For more than a decade, he has served in various roles that align closely with this mission, including Participant Ambassador for the NIH’s All of Us Research Program, Co-Chair of the Community Advisory Committee for the California Partnership for Precision Nutrition (CAPPN), and Co-Lead of the Patient Engagement Working Group for PCORI’s THRIVE Trial. These experiences have deepened his understanding of the vital partnership between patients, clinicians, and researchers in achieving better health outcomes.

In 2023, Campos embraced generative AI to empower himself, his family, and other patients. Using large language models for personalized health insights, decision support, clinic visit preparation, and various other use cases, he witnessed the immense potential of generative AI for patient empowerment. This experience deepened his commitment to revolutionize patient engagement, ensuring AI solutions meet real-world needs, enhance equity, and give individuals control over their health, potentially untethering them from a profit-driven, inefficient, and inequitable healthcare system.