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Nicole Shanahan on Artificial Intelligence

Legal AI Strategist (moderate)

TL;DR

Nicole Shanahan advocates for the responsible application of AI, particularly in law and health, while fearing its potential for misuse by large entities.

Key Points

  • She founded ClearAccessIP, a patent management company that utilized artificial intelligence to automate aspects of creating and managing patent portfolios.

  • Her academic research includes theorizing on the speed and characteristics of society's adoption of artificial intelligence for law and government, referred to as “Coasean Mapping.”

  • As part of her political platform, she stated an intent to use AI and computation on national health records databases to find solutions for chronic disease within weeks.

Summary

Nicole Shanahan's position on Artificial Intelligence centers on its transformative potential within specific sectors, notably the legal field and public health. As an attorney and founder of ClearAccessIP, an AI patent analytics company, she has experience with the practical application of AI to automate tasks like patent portfolio management and data analysis. Furthermore, as a fellow at Stanford Law School's CodeX, the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, her academic research has focused on "Coasean Mapping," theorizing the pace and nature of society's adoption of legal artificial intelligence. She once predicted that the transition to legal AI would "be slow at first—and then will happen suddenly" once legal information becomes machine-readable.

Her concern regarding AI extends to its misuse, as seen in her political partnership. She shares a concern about the participation of big tech as a partner in censorship and surveillance, expressing a fear that technology's power could be turned against humanity if in the wrong hands. She has pledged to mobilize legal ethicists specializing in computational ethics on day one of a potential presidency to address unregulated AI. For health initiatives, she believes that leveraging AI and computation against health records databases could rapidly uncover solutions to the chronic disease epidemic, moving beyond what she views as outdated medical practices.

Key Quotes

“Coasean Mapping,” she theorizes on the pace and nature of society's adoption of artificial intelligence for law and government.

“In this regard, machine learning for data mining will be the single largest driver.”

AI unregulated can be disastrous for us.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nicole Shanahan has a professional background in AI through her role as founder and CEO of ClearAccessIP, a company that used AI for patent analytics. She has also been an academic fellow at Stanford CodeX, where her research centered on the adoption of artificial intelligence within the legal system. She views technology as a key tool for societal improvement, provided it is ethically managed.

Shanahan has expressed concern that the power of AI could be turned against humanity if it remains in the wrong hands, particularly in the context of big tech's involvement in surveillance and information warfare. She believes that unregulated AI can be disastrous for society. As Vice President, she proposed mobilizing experts in computational ethics to address these risks immediately.

In the realm of public health, Nicole Shanahan proposed using AI and computation on health records databases to rapidly find answers to the chronic disease epidemic. In the legal sphere, her past work involved applying data science and computational methods to examine police records for evidence of bias. She seeks to apply technology to solve complex social issues.