One of Tomorrow's Heroes: Edem Gold and Using AI for Good and not Evil
One of the most common hurdles in getting good and timely treatment for cancer are egregious wait times. They're especially terrible in underfunded and understaffed areas like Africa.
I’ve mentioned and teased discussing my new friend
in several of my previous posts and now is the time for me to take anyone reading this on a deep dive.My hope is not only to encourage support for the type of work he is trying to do, but also shine a lot on some positive things for the future.For starters, there are young people out there who are looking for ways to improve the world. Secondly, as someone who has personally railed about the negatives of Artificial Intelligence, Edem is someone working with AI in a way that even the most ardent critic can feel good about.
I met Edem through our mutual friend
who writes about tech, futurism, and other random things at this link. Edem writes on similar things (but more focused on tech and shares articles) here on Substack as well at this link.Anyway, Edem is a 20-year old student at the University of Calabar in Nigeria with a very strong interest in AI. But not the skeezy type that is often overhyped and underwhelming. My take is that AI has tremendous potential if used in the right ways, but, unfortunately, is being used mostly as a pawn of commerce. It’s not terrible, but it’s mostly used in gross ways and scares people who don’t understand it. For my full take on AI, you can check out this guest post I wrote for Andrew’s substack several months ago. And bonus! There’s even a music video that I “made” with AI— though AI only did about 20% of the work.
But again, Edem’s focus isn’t on that side of the technology. He’s looking to use it for the benefit of humanity, specifically folks living in the sub-Saharan part of the world in and around Nigeria. He’s been writing code since he was 12 and takes a lot of inspiration from his father who is a Medical Doctor and Professor. His Christian faith is also a driving force in his life.
He’s been nominated for and won several awards related to Computer Creativity, Machine Learning, and Quantum Physics. Basically, he’s a super smart guy. But he’s also one of those folks, like myself, who tend to get lost in perpetual existential thoughts and looking for purpose on this earth. Like many of us, he feels he’s been put here on Earth to solve problems in the world. However, unlike most of us, he’s got a ton of skills beyond sure will to help him in his efforts. What I’ve learned so far about him really impresses me.
In particular, he’s more focused on tackling specific problems than ALL THE PROBLEMS. Well, at least short term. And first up is cancer. Two types of cancer— breast and prostate cancer which, like most of the world, are the most prevalent types of cancers in his country. But he’s not looking to eradicate them, he’s looking to speed up the horrendously slow process of dialing in an exact diagnosis and figuring out a treatment plan— aka cancer contouring.
This may not seem like much but it reduces a crucial part of the early critical phase of cancer from weeks to hours. or perhaps minutes— two minutes to be exact. That means more lives saved and less emotional distress overall. See my post on scanxiety for an idea of what it can be like. And on top of all that, physicians can spend more time with patients giving care instead of minding the machines to go ping. Yes, I just dropped a Monty Python reference while discussing cancer.
But seriously, he plans on using AI to for his aims— which is a perfect use for it as most assessments show AI is really best at specific tasks. It’s when we over-expand the scope of its tasks that we get in trouble as AI can and will make bad choices.
His project is called Aurelius and get this… he’s been putting together a globally-distributed team and has partnered with a University of Havana professor as a technical advisor. What were YOU doing at age 20? I was trying to figure out the best way to cook using free ketchup and salsa packets.
And yes, there are a few other teams out there in other parts of the world trying to use AI in a similar way, but not as many as you would think due to some surprising hurdles out there. For instance, something that I learned during my recent trip to Albuquerque for the PE-CGS annual meeting was that just gaining acccess to anonymized patient information used to train language learning models isn’t that easy to get… even after patients give permission (to stay HIPAA compliant and) to share it for the purposes of research. That’s because hospitals collecting it can make money selling it for demographic research by commercial entities (ie pharmaceutical companies and large merchants like Amazon) while folks doing clinical research at universities and such don’t have much money for that. So if you’re a hospital that needs to meet investor profit demands, then why give away data that can you can get money for? Kinda crazy, huh? I didn’t fully believe it when I heard an MIT data scientist discuss the issue, but I’ve since looked into and it’s very much a real thing. Researchers trying to crack the “AI for good” code are reliant on hospital systems willing to share in a level of proprietary ownership in exchange for data sharing. Establishing such relationships is the phase Edem is at.
He’s already established a few important relationships with medical institutions to inform his system design and provide clinical validation. But it’s time to step up his game to the next level and form much larger partnerships as he develops the Aurelious Project. Basically that means some funding in exchange for a stake in the endeavor.
The advantage that Edem has is in startup costs. Labor and such are just less expensive in his part of the world for a large number of reasons. That also means a more affordable product. We’re talking thousands of dollars vs. hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to implement. That makes the near-term impact potentially huge because the region is so barren when it comes to funding cancer research. If you really want to dive deeper into the medical ecosystem there then I highly recommend checking out this paper I found on the National Institute of Health (NIH) website.
If successful, Edem’s approach could become a very affordable tool for just about any other area that wishes to adapt it. And of course, it could be expanded to many other types of cancers.
I could really go deep on all of my thoughts on this project, but I don’t want to bore anyone and it’s not even the only thing Edem is working on. This is just the start of what could be many positive innovations. Edem’s long term vision at this point is to develop a number of affordable technologies to address a long list of things Edem thinks would help a whole lot of people and help him answer his search for existential purpose. I really hope he succeeds. Regardless, his spirit of “someone’s got to get this done, why not me?” is highly motivating to someone like me. Hopefully, it’s the same for you. What area of expertise do you have that could be applied to make the world better, even on a small scale? It may sound ridiculous to ask such a question, but I’m quite serious. Think about it. Be creative in your thoughts and ask yourself “why not you?”. And his action is why I think Edem is very much potentially one of tomorrow’s heroes.
If you’re interested in learning more about Edem’s Aurelius Project— especially if you have any connections to individuals or organizations looking to give grants/fund such work — then I recommend reaching out to him through his substack.
Edem was one of the fist people I connected with here on Substack! It was awesome to get to know someone young and thoughtful, and now I'm stoked to be a part of this community we're creating together.
"What area of expertise do you have that could be applied to make the world better, even on a small scale?"
Certainly, for me, it has historically been Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I think we did a really good job of making the culture better with US Grappling in particular, having a semi-national reach and probably a lot of positive influence on the tournament scene. At the Rev gyms, the same is true but on a somewhat more local level. Now, I'm broadening the ambition here on Substack, trying to get folks to think about important things.
Oddly, I seem to also be good at connecting folks, who can then produce meaningful work.
Very inspiring and exactly the kind of AI use we need more of! Thanks for sharing Edem's work.