This reflection has two parts. In total, you should submit two paragraphs - one for part 1 and one for part 2. For both parts, responses must be original. They may not be copied verbatim from the videos or anywhere else, nor should they be generated by AI tools. As stated in the syllabus, you may use such tools to improve the language of your responses, but if you do, please include your original words beneath your revised submission. Reflections submitted late through Wednesday at 11:59pm will have a maximum grade of 80%. Reflections submitted more than 24 hours late will have a maximum grade of 60%.
Part 1:
SCENARIO: You are a data scientist working for a healthcare company developing an AI model to predict the likelihood of patients developing a specific disease based on their medical history and lifestyle data. The company has collected a large dataset from a local hospital, consisting primarily of patients from one region with similar demographic backgrounds and lifestyles.
At a team meeting, a colleague expresses excitement over the model’s high accuracy when tested on the local hospital data, and the company is eager to deploy the system nationwide. However, another team member raises concerns about the model’s ability to generalize to patients from different regions, cultures, and backgrounds. They argue that since the training data is limited to one demographic group, the model might not perform as well on diverse populations, potentially leading to incorrect predictions or even bias against underrepresented groups. Another concern is that the model might be overfitting the local data, meaning it could perform exceptionally well on the training data but fail when exposed to new, unseen medical history of a patient.
Write a paragraph reflecting on the ethical implications of deploying this AI model. You may address questions such as:
What might be the source of generalization gap when deploying the model nationwide?
What are the risks of overfitting the model to the training data, and how can they affect patient outcomes?
What steps can be taken to avoid overfitting and ensure the model works across diverse patient groups?
Part 2:
Reflecting on the content of this module (including all videos and reading), write a paragraph (5–10 sentences) that includes one or more of the following:
Insightful questions;
Clarification questions about ambiguities;
Comments about the relation of the content to previous content;
Solutions to problems or exercises posed in the readings or videos;
Critiques;
Thoughts on what you would like to learn about in more detail;
Possible extensions or related studies;
Thoughts on the topic's importance; and
Summaries of the most important things you learned.
Part 2 of this reflection is designed both to encourage you to engage with the videos before Thursday class and also to allow us to incorporate some of your responses into the Thursday class discussions.