Abstract

Mental health problems such as anxiety disorders and depression have grown in the last decades, with a huge increase in the rate of growth for people under age 26 since the early years of smartphone adoption. Depression is on track to be the global #1 disease burden by 2030. To date, doctors do not understand what causes or precipitates depression, or how to forecast it; nor is there a reliable treatment, although most people will get better. Mobile and wearable devices are improving in their ability to model continuous physiology and activity/sleep/social data for detecting subtly changing patterns related to changing health, and providing early AI-generated forecasts of changes in health. What are some of these patterns telling us about neurological activity, mood, stress and brain health and how accurately? This talk will highlight some of the latest results from our studies at MIT, focusing on both scientific and ethical challenges in using AI to foster good mental health.

Biography

Dr. Rosalind Picard, MIT and Empatica. Dr. Picard is a professor, inventor, engineer, and scientist. She wrote the book Affective Computing that outlines how to give machines the skills of emotional intelligence, which inspired the growing field of Affective Computing. She co-founded two companies that commercialized inventions by her and her team at MIT: Empatica, providing the first AI-smartwatch recognized by the FDA for monitoring seizures, and Affectiva, providing emotion AI software. At MIT, she is a full professor teaching and directing research at the Media Lab, and serves as founding faculty chair for MindHandHeart, MIT's campus-wide wellbeing initiative. She serves also as chief scientist and Chairman for Empatica, where working with many medical partners, they recently released the first medically approved (in the EU) non-invasive smartwatch running AI for forecasting a positive PCR test for a viral respiratory infection (Influenza H1N1, Rhinovirus, or COVID-19).