AI and Sleepless Nights

In “The Danger of Intimate Algorithms,” ID Associate Professor Laura Forlano recounts her own experience with sleep deprivation while using Medtronic’s MiniMed 670G, an automatic insulin pump and sensor system. She points to how a current lack of checks and balances makes this situation possible.

“Unlike drug makers,” Forlano writes, “Companies that make medical devices are not required to conduct clinical trials in order to evaluate the side effects of these devices prior to marketing and selling them.”

At Public Books, she calls for change:

Read on to find three suggestions she makes to promote agency and equity as algorithmic systems become ever more embedded in our society.

“The relevance of documenting injustice and dehumanization at the intersection of artificial intelligence, design, disability, and health care,” Forlano later adds, “is ever more urgent if we are to craft more equitable futures.”