Week 3 Activity: Colloquium talk @ Pomona
This week, Pomona College hosts a talk by Chinasa Okolo, from Cornell University, in Seaver North Auditorium on the Pomona campus. The talk begins at 4:15 PM on Thursday.
For students enrolled in CS Colloquium (CS 195):
- If you’re in Section 1, we expect you to attend the event when it occurs (synchronously).
- If you’re in Section 2, this talk will not be recorded. Some future weeks will have more than one talk, so you can attend one of those in place of this talk.
AI Explainability in the Global South: Towards an Inclusive Praxis for Emerging Technology Users
Abstract
As researchers and technology companies rush to develop artificial intelligence (AI) applications that address social impact problems in domains such as agriculture, education, and healthcare, it is critical to consider the needs of users like community health workers (CHWs), who will be increasingly expected to operate tools that incorporate these technologies. My research shows that CHWs have low levels of AI knowledge, form incorrect mental models about how AI works, and at times, may trust algorithmic decisions more than their own. This is concerning, given that AI applications targeting the work of CHWs are already in active development, and early deployments in low-resource healthcare settings have already reported failures that created additional workflow inefficiencies and inconvenienced patients. Explainable AI (XAI) can help avoid such pitfalls, but nearly all prior work has focused on users that live in relatively resource-rich settings (e.g., the US and Europe) and who arguably have substantially more experience with digital technologies overall and AI systems in particular. In my dissertation work, I critically engage with CHWs and AI practitioners to investigate the feasibility of (X)AI in resource-constrained environments in the Global South and provide actionable recommendations for practitioners (designers, developers, researchers, etc.) interested in building tools accessible to users within these contexts.
About Chinasa Okolo
Chinasa T. Okolo is a recent Computer Science Ph.D. graduate from Cornell University and a newly appointed Fellow at the Brookings Institute. Her research interests include explainable AI, human-AI interaction, AI governance, and information & communication technologies for development (ICTD). Within these fields, she works on projects to understand how frontline healthcare workers in rural India perceive and value AI and examines how explainability can be best leveraged in AI-enabled technologies deployed throughout the Global South. Chinasa also conducts research examining factors impacting the effective adoption and successful implementation of AI in Africa and has worked with international organizations such as the African Union to develop strategic AI policy measures.
When and How to Attend
- Thursday, September 14
- Location: Seaver North Auditorium, Pomona College
- Talk runs from 4:15–5:30 PM
No Recording for Section 2
Pomona College does not record their in-person colloquium talks, so there will be no recording of this talk—it can only be attended synchronously. Students who need an asynchronous talk should attend two talks in a future week.
Required Assessment
To receive credit for attending this colloquium, complete the assessment:
Please do so at your soonest convenience, within 24 hours of seeing the talk.
(When logged in, completion status appears here.)