Artificial intelligence for pandemic resilience: A mechanism for validating and deploying high-impact solutions and tools for public health

Pandemics have a global impact and affect all aspects of our connected society. In order to properly address these impacts, collaboration between governments, the scientific community and industry is essential to implement innovative solutions that protect both the public and the economy, while respecting individual and collective rights.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, many international initiatives are seeking to develop effective AI solutions to combat pandemics and build societal resilience. With the explosion of available information and resources, mechanisms for expert validation, scaling, and rapid deployment of practical solutions are crucial and must be developed within the public domain.

The Working Group on Responsible AI was mandated by the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) to support the responsible development and use of AI in the fight against COVID-19 and future pandemics. In the early stages of the project, an online directory of promising initiatives with high potential for expansion was developed. The ever-evolving “living” directory allows for the online submission and evaluation of candidate initiatives.

The project is currently pursuing, in collaboration with a number of promising initiatives in the online directory, a model for equitable and global pandemic modelling, bringing together non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) models from around the world. These models will be integrated into an “automated calibration framework”, able to adapt to various data sets; essentially, whichever data are available as inputs in a given locale. This initiative aims to help governments make decisions around the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions, and will first be deployed as a pilot in a sub-Saharan African country. The ultimate goal of this collaboration will be to have a modelling ensemble that is easily adaptable to different regions.

Working with international partners, this project highlights the ability to use AI systems to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on human rights, innovation, health and life sciences. With its network of international experts and GPAI member countries, CEIMIA is well positioned to provide a structure to review and leverage research, and promote the development of responsible AI initiatives for the common good.