[Music] hello and welcome to scholarshub at home i am keri williams associate director of alumni events at york university thank you for joining us today this is our first scholarship at home edition of the academic year so welcome we're so pleased to be able to still bring you engaging content from across our faculties wednesdays at 12 noon this webinar is part of our spot our scholarship speaker series and features timely relevant educational lectures by academics and researchers from across york we're pleased to be able to continue the series online to allow even more alumni to hear from some of the university's leading scholars we'd also like to take a moment to thank you for your support of our decision to reschedule last week's scholarship at home last week we took the opportunity to join the collective call to action to support the movement against anti-black racism and police violence against black indigenous and racialized communities we appreciate your support of this decision to stand in solidarity with community we're pleased to inform you that last week's discussion called covet 19 and the environment featuring dr mark winfield has been rescheduled for thursday september 29th at 12 noon if you had previously registered for last week's session you do not need to register again you'll automatically receive a link for uh to join for those of you who are interested in joining us if you haven't registered already please visit there's a link on your screen yorku. ca alumni and friends to register along with dr winfield's rescheduled session we're so thrilled to announce that we will be covering a wide range of topics throughout the fall term many of which are suggestions you our audience shared with us uh topics will include how schools are preparing um to go back to school that's actually next week uh social media media and bullying as well as various pertinent and recent scientific advancements so thanks again for your feedback some exciting news from earlier this month on september 1st the university announced the creation of the new faculty of environment and urban change this faculty brings together the expertise housed in the faculty of environmental studies and the department of geography this new faculty of environment and urban urban change is believed to be the first faculty of its kind in the world to bring together a critical mass of physical geographers ecologists social scientists humanities researchers and artists whose innovative world-renowned research addresses natural built and social spaces from a global perspective and most recently just last week the 2020 2021 academic year began it goes without saying this year is unique with the vast majority of courses being delivered remotely in her address to the community president linton said we are beginning this academic year with a renewed sense of who we are what is important to us and how much we are truly capable of achieving we welcome you to read the full address at yfile. news.
yorku. ca and that link should come up on your screen now although we aren't all in the same location we recognize many indigenous nations have long-standing relationships with the territories upon which york university campuses are located that precede the establishment of the university york acknowledges its presence on the traditional territory of many indigenous nations the areas known as takaranto has been care taken by the anishinaabe nation the hood nishani confederacy and the huronwendan it is now home to many first nation metis and inuit communities we acknowledge the current treaty holders the mississaugas of the credit first nation this territory is subject to the dish with one spoon wampum covenant an agreement to peaceably care and share for the great lakes region before we begin today's lecture we would like to take a quick poll of our audience asking you that should come up on your screen now how would you rate your knowledge uh regarding the topic of today's presentation ai so that should pop up on your screen and i'll give everybody a moment to respond see here great and we'll just wait for a moment to see the okay so the majority over 50 of you are somewhat informed um and um and so that's great and some of you are even new to the topic so you know we really appreciate you taking the time to to submit those that feedback because it really helps us and more importantly our speaker have an idea about who's in our audience and the knowledge you have coming into the discussion so lots of learning opportunity here if any of you need help with the zoom platform please feel free to click on the q a button that's at the bottom of your screen to enter your question our team is there to help you that same button can be used to submit questions to our speaker today during the uh as there will be a q a session uh following her lecture and for those of you who are watching live on facebook please feel free to submit any questions or comments through the comment section for the video and uh the team will send them my way so today's talk is titled fast tracking our techno future the unanticipated effect of covid19 featuring amanda terminal turnbull phd candidate law amanda turnbull is a doctoral student at osgood hall law school her research investigates the conundrum conundrums posed by creative artificial intelligence ai technologies and contributes to reforming and developing the law as we embrace these technologies ms turnbull is an interpla interdisciplinarian uh disciplinary scholar who began her career in the discipline of the arts teaching music for a number of years before moving to work in a legal environment where she took on a variety of roles uh including assistant dean of the faculty of law at the university of ottawa for almost eight years uh so welcome amanda it's an absolute pleasure to have you with us today thank you carrie great so uh the floor is yours so i will turn it over to you thank you so much i'm really pleased to be here uh to be able to deliver this scholarship at home lecture to say that our lives have changed dramatically since the outbreak of covid19 was declared a pandemic is an understatement the changes that we have experienced have been a direct consequence of the pandemic such as health effects in the more than 29 million confirmed cases worldwide to date but there have also been indirect changes for instance prior to the pandemic who could have imagined seeing wild hearts of goats running through typically bustling towns like those that were seen in the north coast of wales who could have envisioned peacocks dancing on empty mumbai streets who could have imagined the almost eerie silence in the skies with the reduction of global air traffic and who could have conceived of robo-dogs like this one named spot enforcing social distancing in parks as stay-at-home orders began easing spot here pictured was piloted by the singapore government in may 2020. these indirect consequences are externalities or byproducts of pandemic and they may be negative such as increased hate speech which fuels racism and xenophobia and society but externalities may also be positive i'm going to speak to you today about some unanticipated positive effects of our pivot technology during covert 19 and their potential implications during health crises such as pandemics we have historically moved into a societal survival mode isolating quarantining avoiding large gatherings of people moving to the countryside and so on and so forth and that move over time has increasingly pivoted to reliance on our technologies this has resulted in somewhat surprisingly to an increased resilient society take for example the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1300 it lasted for the better part of 500 years it was devastating and it killed more than a third of the population of europe but the plague also led to inclusive change within society as a result of the development of the printing press which at the time was a revolutionary technology the first mechanized printing press using movable type is attributed to johannes gutenberg of mainz germany in around 1452.
many scholars argue that gutenberg was in the right place at the right time for unveiling his new form of technology mainz was an ideal location gutenberg was able to make use of great pressing technology to devise his movable press but the printing press was also an externality of the bubonic plague survivors of the plague acquired the property of those who died so this included land buildings and money but also clothing bedding and other types of cloth eventually there was a surplus of cloth and by the end of the 14th century this resulted in the manufacturing of what was called rag paper taking its name from the rag and bone man who collected bones as well as old clothing rag paper was made from excess fabric and provided an impetus for the invention of printing by about 1450 there was an oversupply of rack paper and its price fell to a low level thus increasing the affordability of printed books and what this led to was greater circulation of knowledge within the population and with greater literacy and the rise and with that came greater literacy and the rise of the reading public at the time the gutenberg press was invented the literacy rate in europe was less than 10 percent by 1800 it grew to over 50 percent so we could say that the literacy divide in the population decreased substantially resulting in a more inclusive society all of which arose as an unanticipated consequence of the development of paper and printing during the plague years this link of technology in this case the technologizing of the written word and health may be seen as a trend that has continued as an unanticipated consequence of other outbreaks of disease the smallpox 7 epidemic in 1721 in boston for instance arguably resulted in the development of the independent newspaper in america the new england koran founded by james franklin and his brother benjamin who would go on and do great things after his stint in the publishing business saw the opportunity to start up his newspaper and disseminate the controversy over whether to use inoculation as the most effective manner of controlling the spread of smallpox the slide shows slightly out of focus but an addition of 1722 new england current with a letter written by mrs silence do good who actually was benjamin franklin's pen name the paper gave the country its first taste of a free press and marked the path toward freedom of expression in america free press and freedom of expression are factors in promoting an inclusive society the significance here well the dissemination of the technologized word through the format of the newspaper during an epidemic is further affirmation between this link between technology and health the telephone is another example of a technology this time the technologizing of the spoken word that we have turned to during a health crisis in this case the universal telephone was marketed as a remedy to quarantining as this ad from 1910 demonstrates you can see that it advertises the telephone's potential to help people cope with isolation and it turned out not to be just a marketing campaign during the 1918 influenza pandemic for instance merchants in los angeles began offering teleshopping to customers in order to help spread help prevent the spread of influenza also high school students in california had regular phone conversations with their teachers during lockdown this was arguably a form of proto-distance education and remember this is over 100 years ago however although the telephone was marketed as a universal service the reality was quite different only 35 percent of homes in the us had a telephone by 1920. so what this meant was that at least 65 percent of the population was unable to access the services being offered through the use of the telephone to minimize exposure to the flu during the 1918 outbreak and what ended up happening during this outbreak was that the telephone operators who were mainly women that manually connected each caller and recipient were set up in a kind of elbow to elbow uh working conditions and they started getting sick with the flu due to working in such perce proximity so ultimately the public was asked to stay off the phone unless it was an emergency the upshot well the pivot telecommunications technology during the 1918 pandemic clearly demonstrated a telecommunications divide within society it also showed the telephone was not sufficiently automated to be invaluable to be an invaluable social support during the flu pandemic in other words another design approach was needed to avoid the human in the loop but the unanticipated consequence of the 1918 pandemic was that more inclusive and more automated telecommunications technology could be used as a form of protection during a health crisis again a clear link between technology and health fast forward through time to 2020 and many of us have experienced an extraordinary and accelerated pivot to digital technologies during the covet 19 pandemic what's the evidence of this well many of us reverted to remote work in online education during the initial lockdown we have also seen artificial intelligence data science and technology all used in the tracking of infectious disease ai helping to diagnose the virus technology being used in processing health claims drones delivering medical supplies algorithms being used to develop drugs ultraviolet d robots being put to use to clean hospitals to clean restaurants and grocery stores we've seen chat bots and call centers we've seen digital government services virtually witnessing documents conducting trials and other court proceedings online and the list goes on and on this amplified use of technology has been critical to how we've coped with unfamiliar circumstances arising out of covid19 and the premise behind this is so simple machines don't get sick our technologies help protect us from contagion again the clear link between technology and health emerges however the protection offered by our technologies is only available to those who can access them statistics show that 97 of the world population lives within the reach of a mobile cellular signal and that 93 percent live within the reach of a 3g or higher network statistics also show that the use of the internet is continually growing with 4. 1 billion people accessing it this figure translates roughly into 53.
6 of the global population but it also reflects that 46. 4 percent remain offline internet use is highest in europe at about 82. 5 percent and lowest in africa at 28.
2 where affordability and digital literacy remain key barriers to uptake and use there's also a gender a gap in gender 48 of women globally are making use of the internet versus 58 of men however the rate is near parity in the americas there's also a gap in age 9 of the world population was over the age of 65 in 2019 and according to available data in canada and the u. s and europe between 30 to 40 of that group remains offline in less developed countries older persons are least likely of all age groups to have access to digital technologies we know that covid19 affects all segments of the population but we also know that one of its most shocking features is its disproportionate impact on older persons they are most vulnerable and have a higher risk of mortality and developing severe disease following the viral infection our initial pivot to digital technologies in this health crisis left out more than 30 percent of the population who are most vulnerable to the disease this gap is referred to as the digital divide and generally accepted factors that affect access and use of the digital technologies include not only age but income race ethnicity gender and geography this divide posed further harm to the most vulnerable group during the initial phase of covet 19. more than 30 percent of older persons did not have access to crucial pandemic information nor did they have access to telehealth or telemedicine nor to grocers who began offering priority e-commerce access in order to help get food to them safely the use of health tracking applications and medical medication management could also have been useful and helpful in reducing social interactions between staff at long-term care facilities and residents in emerging from this initial crisis of covet 19 we see that increased access to and use of technologies would have reduced the impact of isolation in older persons and in fact we are now seeing official health recommendations to increase access to digital technologies for older persons in order to minimize social isolation and loneliness both of these are known to heighten risk of cardiovascular autoimmune neurocognitive and mental health problems while digital inclusion has long been understood to be tied to human rights and to improving the human development index in developing countries our pivot to technology during covet 19 has demonstrated that in fact technology is tied specifically and inextricably to the right to health the right to health is a fundamental aspect of our human rights and of our understanding of what it means to have a life and dignity it's an inclusive rate and includes a vast range of factors that may help in leading a healthy existence but full content of the right to health has never been fully expressed what we are now seeing emerging as a result of covet 19 and its impact on older persons is that the right digital technologies ought to be included past pandemics have shown us the unanticipated consequence that pivoting to technology results in increased societal resilience in the longer term the bubonic plague played a role in bridging the literacy divide in society while the boston smallpox epidemic contributed to promoting more inclusiveness in society through the freedom of expression the 1918 influenza outbreak showed that more automated telecommunications technology could be used as a form of protection during health crisis and covet 19 has followed the route toward inclusive change in providing us with the opportunity to deal with the digital divide by squarely tying technology with the right to health our pivot to technology hasn't been perfect since we know that our technologies amplify the existing social inequalities that are woven into society but by recognizing this and in thinking about technology as a type of care it gives us the opportunity to imagine and create a world in which everyone thrives author and activist arunduti arundhati roy has described pandemics as portals kind of gateways between one world and the next as a portal coveted 19 has pointed us on the path towards digital inclusion as part of a right to health resolving this also has consequences for how we govern or moderate online expression there has been strong consensus by freedom of expression experts that regulation of speech through platform law that is to say larger social media companies who control their own platform on the basis of terms of service and community standards fails to provide sufficient transparency and protection for freedom of expression and other human rights an alternative to platform law is applying international human rights law but international human rights norms aren't a cure-all for online speech regulation since these laws are found in a variety of international and regional treaties as well as being subject to conflicting interpretations however parrying down the general human rights platform to the more particular right to health as we um may prove to be more effective as we emerge from the pandemic we should be mindful of the unanticipated positive effects of accelerating or fast-tracking our digital technologies fears about technology and concerns about taking over obscure the evidence that pivoting to technology constitutes a form of care-mongering so i believe i reached the end of my uh talk and uh this is over to carrie hi amanda thank you so much for that um it's so uh such a constructive sort of lens to look at this through like the unintended consequences of the of the pandemic it's just a really really uh a constructive and refreshing way to look at it we now do have time for our audience to ask any questions that they may have of you we do have a few already and if you're watching us on zoom please use the q a function at the bottom of your screen and again those of you on facebook you can just submit your questions using the comment box and the team will get them my way uh so are you ready for some questions yeah sounds great yeah okay great um so this um this question actually picks up on sort of where you were going towards the end of your talk um around human rights a question from michael uh what are your thoughts about the possibility of the trudeau government in in next week's throne speech committing to the idea of free internet access for canadians as a human right oh goodness yeah i know an anticipated question yeah um well it would certainly be um something to it would certainly be interesting to contemplate um i mean satellites and space provide us with internet access um and so uh on the one hand it would be relatively easy to do but on the other hand you know um implementing uh how we how we charge how we don't charge how we yeah i mean there's so many it's a complicated question so um it would be very interesting if you did yeah and you know what maybe even part of this is uh um a thought that it should be and you know it should be a human right and you know what would it take to take to do that um another question for you um what are some of the challenges older persons experience in terms of use in relation to digital technologies well that that's a good that that's uh yeah very topical um there's a number of barriers uh and they can be grouped into kind of internal uh as well as external so the external um i i mentioned some of them uh that are present already when we discuss the digital divide income ethnicity education gender these things all have impact as well as um ageism so a discrimination on the basis of age as well as internal internal barriers so uh digital literacy um many of the uh much of the population not much of it part of the population uh who is now over 65 never experienced um digital technologies in their work life and so their digital literacy will have to would have to increase um some of older persons experience what we refer to as technophobia so they're fearful of using technologies there's functional impairment when we think about things like iphones they're designed for a younger mind set they're designed for younger functionality the buttons on keyboards may be too small to read so there's some functional impairments there as well as cognitive impairment but there is a field known as gerund technology that arose in the 1990s in europe that does oh she's frozen there oh you're back oh you just we just we just uh you cut off at um gerund technology that was created in europe yeah um there is a field that studies uh the types of barriers that older persons uh experience when dealing with technologies right okay great thank you for that another question for you what role do you think technology will play in a post-pandemic society with regards to daily functions uh will we ever have to leave our homes again well i hope so because my home's not all that big i think um that in a post-pandemic society you know we we have some new responsibilities that have come to light right we're we're increasingly aware of safety in a way health safety in a way that we weren't in the past um we've become more accustomed and its pros and its cons to remote work um you know i think there has an accelerated um use of ai and data science for uh direct discovery um so there's sort of a focus on health um but you know the idea that technology has care or a society that it that cares more through its use of technology um i think is something um that's kind of novel in a way we we thought previously technology more about um pushing frontiers gaining wealth but um or or imposing on on human rights but what about the aspect of a form of care um so i hope that answers the question yeah no well you know it's interesting we have another question in from the audience sort of picking up on on care if you don't mind if i keep going um so so this audience member says she's been concerned or he i'm not sure has been concerned about the disappearance of compassion in health care through covid um so while technology is opening up options for people to have access to health we also need to remember for example uh a 25 year old who's getting terminal diagnosis but needs support in person as an example right um both from family and from health care professionals so her question or the question i keep saying her but the question is does history demonstrate that function and convenience is priority over the compassion what do you think hmm well i don't work or can they exist equally i guess well yeah well i think machines keep us alive right um but we really need human faces to feel comforted so there's certain things that can't be replaced um and they can be supplemented um they can increase our um our resilience and our safety but i don't think you can replace um the comfort of a as i said human face right right yeah and i'm wondering i guess what what could be happening in the pandemic is things are happening in the pandemic where a typical response that could involve both care and like you said the machines that don't get sick um not necessarily happening in that way one thing gets compromised i guess is what this with this attendee is sort of getting at it it's like something gets compromised in that and it's not going to be the machine because the machine doesn't get sick right it's going to be perhaps the the compassionate side thanks thanks for that uh one more question um how would you describe i think one more question uh how would you describe technology as an extension of the human body uh do you believe this is the case um well i think you could think about it as prosthesis uh yes uh in a way um but through the lens of what it means to be a human being rather than through the means to imagine what it's like to be artificial or a machine so it's kind of it goes back to the last point you know machines people can keep us alive but it really takes the human touch you can't substitute um the human touch and the human face to feel comfortable right right um you know what we do have one one more and there's so much um of in your lecture that was about um the positive outcomes right the unintended consequences that were actually really positive the printing press and the use of the telephone like really really positive things so it's really exciting to think about well you know what what does this mean for us and obviously it's gonna will come clear with time uh this one last question we have from the audience is asking for your thoughts uh amanda about the negative consequences of rapidly expanding ai technology um and the examples they give is such as like military applications or the surveillance of populations right um so this is a really curious question um so i chose to talk about the positive aspects of pandemic today but i've actually been co-writing a paper with one of my phd law colleagues his name is kenneth grad and his part of the paper focuses on the negative consequences of pandemic um he refers to it as pandemics penumbra so the the constant companion of disease on the one hand you have the positives on the other you have these negative externalities and what he talks about is the rise in hate speech and he goes back through the same pandemics that i mentioned in my talk and he looks at the types of hate speech that came about as a result of uh pandemic and um our need as kind of our human or very human need to blame people and how do we how do we how do we deal with that and so uh yes there's the there's there's definitely the the flip side to uh positive um externalities um one of them being uh negative uh sorry one of the uh negative externalities being hate speech as you mentioned things like weaponized ai threatening ai um ai can also help amplify existing problems in society right right right right okay uh so as i said i tried to concentrate on the positive side of pandemic penumbra but yes for sure there exists the the negative externalities as well yeah yeah well it's like i said it's a very constructive um sort of lens to look at this through so so it's really helpful we have one last question and then we will pretty much be out time um this question comes from the audience we know too much screen time i guess as a form of technology um it's always it's always on a piece of technology isn't recommended for children um do you think that will change because of covet 19.
well i mean i think you have to try and strike a balance right um if we're going to spend x period in front of a screen each day as um a substitute for attending school um we know from attending school that children lose interest after a while they need to take breaks and i think the same thing's a lot to apply when we're dealing with screen time i mean i'm not an expert on screen time but it would seem reasonable to me that we take breaks that we figure out what recess means um staring at screams for too long yeah but yeah i mean there's definitely going to have to be um consideration for uh aspects like that right right um is there a so i mean child behavior you need to sort of build those things what i'm hearing you say is you have to build those things in regardless of what they're doing whether they're on screen or they're in class you have to build in that flexibility um do you think that when you think about the people who are sort of designing ai technology designers engineers developers um if we sort of take out or even if we want to take the same lens of children as an example or at at at large what do you think those designers and engineers should be focusing on in this pandemic well that's the type of that's type a type of health consideration too right so um if you are designing technologies with health in mind you might think differently about how you design light filters on screens and eyes and um so i i think it just sort of doubles back to my point about thinking about technology as care as about and linking it to health yes how does that change how we develop our technologies um how we govern our technologies yeah what we prioritize in that as well um that's that's been wonderful well thank you so much for spending this time with us and for sharing this work with us um just it's just it's just great it's it's great to have this level of of um analysis and review that we're able to share from from our faculty so thank you so much thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk today okay um and just before we say goodbye to you and our audience um thank you all again for taking the time to join us today we have one last poll question for you and the question is now um that you've heard amanda turnbull speak how would you rate your knowledge of ai technologies in the pandemic uh it should pop up in your screen right now and i'll give everybody a moment to respond uh thank you so much for participating in that um now feel free to share we did see a question come in there if today's talk will be recorded and yes it has been and it will be shared and so we would uh welcome you to please um share it with your friends it will be posted on our york alumni youtube channel you may also join our linkedin group or follow us on facebook by searching york university alumni and follow us on instagram and twitter at yorku alumni uh so that's at sign your q alumni uh feedback about this or any of our programming is most welcome as you know we take it in and we plan based on your feedback um it can be sent to us via any of those social channels or email directly at alumni yorku dossier scholarshub at home is back wednesdays at noon eastern time join us wednesday september 23rd next wednesday for back to school prep strategies to help your kids succeed in math and promote family literacy to learn more about that and see the rest of our september lineup please visit us at yorku.
