The Key To How AI Can Help Us Be Healthier Posted on : Nov 19 - 2017

Can AI make us healthier, happier, better? That’s the question on everyone’s minds these days.  If engineers continue to program AI to take away our jobs and our need to utilize our capacity for deductive reasoning and common sense, then the answer is clearly NO. Human beings thrive on being challenged. It develops will, intelligence, adaptability whether we recognize that fact or not. On the other hand, with upsurge in health tech that uses AI to monitor our health systems and our sleep, the answer is YES. The real answers, lie with those who go beyond such pro/con conversations and look at the ethics of AI like The International Neuroethics Society or look at human code and technical code as collaborative and operating on similar principles like Liza Lichtinger. Liza is a unique hybrid: psychologist, wellness pioneer and a computer code developer. It’s a combo that makes her uniquely qualified to live her mission as a futurist who shows companies CEO’s and Engineering teams how to design AI in ways that provide maximum health for people who use their products.

It’s one of those flawless Indian Summer days as I pull up to the beautiful, white 1920s style Dolce Hayes Mansion in San Jose for the SAND Conference which stands for Science and Nonduality and brings together some of the brightest minds in bioengineering, health, computer sciences and spirituality to share ideas, tips and concerns across platforms.  I’ve come to interview Liza who is working on character development and personality scripting with Hanson Robotics and the Institute of Noetic Sciences on the AI for a Wellness Coach Robot named Sophia. When finished, one of her capabilities will be guiding people through meditation, amongst many other things.

We take a moment to sit in the general lounge area to soak in some sun and let networking happen in the best way, informally. As we sit, one of Sophia’s engineers joins us. I ask him about what the benefits are of a robot rather than a human leading people through meditation. Mentally I’m thinking “great, now computers can take my job AND my spirituality,” but I keep these thoughts to myself and try to keep an open mind. “Computers can be more calming for people during meditation,” he says “they feel safer because there’s no judgement from a robot.” I think about group meditations I’ve participated in, and realize he’s got a point. Even with marvelous instructors there was the awareness that this was a human being who could possibly judge whether I was being mindful enough. I would never worry about that from artificial intelligence, then again, it’s very likely I might not feel uplifted and inspired by a robot, either. Liza, also a martial arts specialist, knows about the importance of the human element in teaching settings and has been instrumental in helping Hanson add Zen philosophies into Sophia’s programming. View More