Artificial intelligence is having significant impacts on advancing medical research. Dr. Francois Bolduc is a pediatric neurologist, with deep expertise in understanding the genetic basis of memory and cognition. As both a clinician and researcher, Dr. Bolduc is using artificial intelligence to advance his research as well as serve patients. We talk about the role of big data and AI in genetic research and the challenges and opportunities in working as part of an interdisciplinary team. We also discuss how a chat bot developed by Dr. Bolduc’s team is helping autistic children and their parents by providing a medically sound, ongoing support system.

“One thing that AI brought is the ability to manage very complex data. We always had to reduce the information (about a patient), to some degree, to keep it within our working memory…what AI allows is these “external brains”....people are very complex and with AI, we are trying to capture all their information and not be biased in our selection criteria.” - Francois Bolduc

Dr. Francois Bolduc is an Associate Professor of pediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta. His work focuses on identifying the molecular mechanisms underlying cognitive, behavioral, and social defects in patients with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD). He leads a lab that has developed several paradigms in Drosophila to model and quantitatively study the various defects seen in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. His team is using artificial intelligence (AI) to better understand the complex interactions modulating behavioral outcomes in animal models and human as well as developing a chatbot to better provide information to parents, health professionals, and educators involved with individuals with NDD.

Find out more - www.bolduclab.com/page9.html

AI4Society Dialogues is a co-production between AI4Society, a signature research area at the University of Alberta and the Kule Institute for Advanced Research (KIAS), an endowed institute at the University of Alberta that supports research in the social sciences, humanities and fine arts.

Host: Katrina Ingram, Founder and CEO, Ethically Aligned AI
Technical Producer: Corey Stroeder
Special thanks to Dr. Scott Smallwood and the Sound Studies Institute at the University of Alberta for providing recording space.
Theme music: “Seeing the Future” by Dexter Britain

Dr. Eleni Stroulia, Professor, Computer Science and Director, AI4Society
Dr. Geoffrey Rockwell, Professor, Philosophy and Digital Humanities, Director, Kule Institute and co-Director, AI4Society
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