Nazia Fiazi testifies on health data breaches and algorithmic bias
Nazia Fiazi describes receiving a letter that her health information was exposed and being offered a temporary credit monitoring trial. She cites algorithmic bias research showing black patients under-identified as sick, and deepfake harms to women and girls, urging the Council to advance validation, kill switches, and a right to sue.
I would say it's now good evening to the members of the council.
My name is Nazia Fiazi, and I'm here to talk about what AI is doing to the people, the health care that it's supposed to protect.
This year alone, I've already received one letter saying that my health information was exposed.
The remedy for this, which is always a remedy, is that I'm going to get a free trial of credit monitoring.
A trial, as if the risk of my medical history being out there ends when the trial does.
The collection is expanding.
When patients go to the doctor's office now, AI tools may be used for listening and recording the visit.
Many patients don't know what's happening, where those recordings go, or who else can access them.
This doesn't even count the fact that Palantir is currently in New York City hospitals.
Palantir provides data integration and artificial intelligence platforms that sit on top of electronic health records.
Another danger is bias.
In 2019, Obermeyer and colleagues published a study in the journal Science of Commercial Algorithm used to flag patients for extra care.
It used past health data spending as a standard for illness.
So it underestimated how sick black patients were.
At the same risk score, they were considerably sicker.
It took independent researchers to catch this.
The harm isn't only to our records.
AI tools are being used to create fake sexual images of women and girls without their consent and the toll on their mental health, including anxiety, shame, and pulling away from school and friends.
It is a public health problem.
It also isn't lost on me that the Cornell case is weighing heavily on many young women.
In another incident in Massachusetts, chat GPT was used to plan out a murder.
I just want to say these harms share one cause.
AI is being used, trusted before it's being tested.
I urge the council to advance independent validation that covers privacy and security and a bias, a kill switch for failing systems, and a right to sue for New York who are harmed.
I also just want to end this with a statement that is not part of the organization that I am with, but on my behalf as a researcher,
people like Alex Karp, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Dario Amadei are not concerned with their technologies helping humanity for the greater good, but instead the power and profits it brings for themselves and for their friends.
Thank you for allowing me to testify.
Thank you so much for your testimony.
You may continue.