Tanay is a student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, with an interest in Computer Science. When he lived in Saint Louis, he collaborated with leaders in low-income communities to provide musical instruments to students who couldn’t otherwise afford them. As a computer scientist, he hopes to use his skills to provide greater opportunities in lower-resourced areas. In addition to his interest in computer science, Tanay is also keen on linguistics and learning different languages, including basic Amharic, Korean, Filipino, Berber, Sanskrit, and Spanish. Tanay hopes to utilize the SNF Paideia fellowship to understand what the combination of linguistics and computer science can accomplish.
Tanay has encountered income disparity first-hand while working in the restaurant business. He is curious how advanced computer technologies and artificial intelligence can lessen the economic gap.
I hope to use Artificial Intelligence to lessen the economic divide by, for instance, using AI in underprivileged areas to provide medical assistance. AI can make visits to the doctor cheaper, provide more doctor-patient interaction time, or stand in place of a doctor where they aren’t available.
While there are many economic benefits to AI, Tanay is also concerned about biases and ethical considerations. “Due to biased training data, ML/AI can be a dangerous tool when applied to fields that already negatively impact marginalized groups. Throughout my major, I hope to better understand the ethics of AI/ML within computer science, as well as specific, discover actionable items that technology can help solve. Rather than utilize my skills for profitable endeavors, I want to prioritize projects that better society and demonstrate the value of such projects to others.”