Attending the Presidential Distinguished Forum:
December 4, 2024, Riggs Alumni Center:
I had the opportunity to attend the presidential distinguished forum where Dr. Arati Prabhukar, the Director of the White House Science and Technology policy, talked about future scenarios of health, climate, and the AI revolution, and how the Biden administration was addressing these issues at the alumni center. I learned more about the role of a science and technology advisor, and how much the government is considering implementing science based policies that are relevant but often overlooked by mainstream media. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this event was open to students as well as faculty. Dr. Prabhukar presented different outlooks on each of these topics including the “bad” and good scenarios, much like in our Visions of the Future Project.
Photo of the Forum
Health: A grim scenario would entail families drinking lead and PFAS contaminated water and not having health coverage. A positive scenario: access to the outdoors, breathing clean air and drinking water, and being cancer free. She noted the Biden Administration's ongoing commitment to remove PFAS, a.k.a forever chemicals, from our drinking water. She mentioned how although the USA as a leader in research, but how churning out research articles is not delivering progress that the world needs, which is why the US created a directed research program much like DARPA, but instead called ARPAH-Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.
Climate: Prabhukar talked about climate tipping points and the direction the earth is heading, and that the US is making progress in decarbonizing and changing the electric grid, but that there are still ways to go. She said that a negative scenario would lead to floods, hurricanes, and the 6th mass extinction. A positive scenario would include limiting warming, since it would not be stopped. She once again talked about the Biden Administration’s climate efforts, saying that the US joined the Paris Climate Agreement on his first day in office, and that he acted the most on climate compared to any other president in history.
AI Revolution: Prabhukar maintained that although there could be concerns about AI, the development of AI has massive potential for boosting productivity and efficiency. She noted that companies are developing products for medical doctors to better diagnose their patients, as well as how facial recognition has reduced wait times in airport lines. She also assured that the US is using AI in accordance with its own values, and wants the rest of the world to follow the US’ framework, so as AI is not abused; the abuse of AI would result in mass surveillance, as well housing and loan discrimination, and more.
I did not hear any logical fallacies, and I found her claims very convincing. Prabhukar did not make any claims that were not fact based, apart from her own personal encounters and anecdotes. For example, she talked about her engineering background and how she always knew she wanted to use science to propel society forward. She also described her experience working at NIST and being called up for the role as White House advisor. Her points were very convincing, since she cited evidence of legislation the Biden administration was passing. Although it is impossible to predict the future, she provided different perspectives on each issue, reducing the need for speculation. When comparing scenarios, she did not make an either or fallacy because she made clear that she presented the absolute worst case scenarios and the best case scenarios, and how the Biden administration was attempting to solve them. She didn't touch on how the administration could improve, but this was because she acted as a positive representative of the administration. I enjoyed going to the forum, but a lot of information was condensed into a pretty short time frame, and there is still a lot of conversation to be had about these topics.