Department of Pediatrics, UCSF, San Francisco, California, United States of America.
Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, UCSF, San Francisco, California, United States of America.
PLoS Comput Biol. 2022 Jan 31;18(1):e1009719. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009719. eCollection 2022 Jan.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the power to improve our lives through a wide variety of applications, many of which fall into the healthcare space; however, a lack of diversity is contributing to limitations in how broadly AI can help people. The UCSF AI4ALL program was established in 2019 to address this issue by targeting high school students from underrepresented backgrounds in AI, giving them a chance to learn about AI with a focus on biomedicine, and promoting diversity and inclusion. In 2020, the UCSF AI4ALL three-week program was held entirely online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, students participated virtually to gain experience with AI, interact with diverse role models in AI, and learn about advancing health through AI. Specifically, they attended lectures in coding and AI, received an in-depth research experience through hands-on projects exploring COVID-19, and engaged in mentoring and personal development sessions with faculty, researchers, industry professionals, and undergraduate and graduate students, many of whom were women and from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds. At the conclusion of the program, the students presented the results of their research projects at the final symposium. Comparison of pre- and post-program survey responses from students demonstrated that after the program, significantly more students were familiar with how to work with data and to evaluate and apply machine learning algorithms. There were also nominally significant increases in the students' knowing people in AI from historically underrepresented groups, feeling confident in discussing AI, and being aware of careers in AI. We found that we were able to engage young students in AI via our online training program and nurture greater diversity in AI. This work can guide AI training programs aspiring to engage and educate students entirely online, and motivate people in AI to strive towards increasing diversity and inclusion in this field.
人工智能（AI）可以通过各种应用来改善我们的生活，其中许多应用都属于医疗保健领域；然而，缺乏多样性正在限制 AI 能够帮助人们的广泛程度。加州大学旧金山分校的 AI4ALL 计划于 2019 年成立，旨在通过针对来自代表性不足背景的高中生，让他们有机会学习以生物医学为重点的 AI，并促进多样性和包容性，来解决这个问题。2020 年，由于 COVID-19 大流行，加州大学旧金山分校的 AI4ALL 为期三周的计划完全在线进行。因此，学生们通过虚拟方式参与，获得 AI 经验，与 AI 中的多元化榜样互动，并了解通过 AI 推进健康。具体来说，他们参加了编码和 AI 讲座，通过深入研究探索 COVID-19 的实践项目获得了实际经验，并与教师、研究人员、行业专业人士以及本科生和研究生进行了指导和个人发展课程的交流，其中许多人是女性，来自代表性不足的种族和族裔背景。在该计划结束时，学生们在最终研讨会上展示了他们的研究项目成果。对学生们在计划前后的调查回应进行比较后表明，在该计划之后，更多的学生熟悉如何使用数据，以及如何评估和应用机器学习算法。学生们对 AI 中来自历史上代表性不足群体的人的了解、对 AI 进行自信讨论的能力以及对 AI 职业的认识也有了名义上的显著提高。我们发现，我们能够通过我们的在线培训计划吸引年轻学生参与 AI，并在 AI 中培养更大的多样性。这项工作可以为那些希望完全在线参与并教育学生的 AI 培训计划提供指导，并激励 AI 领域的人们努力增加多样性和包容性。
