After dedicating three days to building an analysis of AI technologies with health practitioners from the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, we embarked on a collective process to envision a landscape for AI grounded in our local context. This process opened up conversations about how population needs are considered in the provision of services, the possibilities and limitations of using technologies for community care, and how AI might support connection and expand the reach of public services to those who need them most.
Envisioning AI Landscapes
This exercise takes inspiration from the landscapes that we are often presented with when it comes to AI technologies. The visions that Big Tech has created for us portray fully wirelessly interconnected cities and automated government systems and services, often leaving humans aside, let alone the environment. These images, reinforced through films and popular culture, have become part of our collective imagination. They also tend to evoke a sense of inevitability and loss of agency, as increasing automation is often associated with expanded forms of control.
Key topics that emerged from the collective landscape-making: 1. The need to diversify the tools and methods for assessing community needs by CUPHD and 2. The need to reach communities meaningfully through AI in order to promote social cohesion as the basis to improve health outcomes in Champaign County.
Assessing and improving community services by the Public Health District is a conversation that moves beyond the delivery of healthcare and gets into the territory of needs assessments and community connections. While building this landscape, we discussed whose needs have shaped the service offerings of CUPHD, and whose voices have been left behind in the design and decision-making surrounding community health services.
We also explored ideas of what meaningful connection between community members and across sectors of society could look like, if we were to leverage the technological possibilities that we now experience through AI, but that do not always need AI systems to be deployed.
This is valuable information for those of us engaged in the practice of designing services and interventions that prioritize connection and cultural appropriateness, particularly as the landscape visualizes collective visions from people who work directly with communities over time and are witnesses to how relationship-based care means improved quality of life for many.
From this exploration, we continue to work together towards realizing our vision for communities that are sustained and cared for, amidst our current social and technocratic climate.
"The map of the last day was the most memorable activity because it pushed me to really consider what the role of AI might be in my work. I am very hesitant to AI, especially generative AI and similar programs that use extracted data, so I had to step out of my comfort zone. I found it really interesting how our group came up with ideas, too. Most of the ideas were ways to relieve administrative burden in order to promote human relationships versus what I usually see, which is AI being used as an end in itself".
From a Community-based Doula:
