NLM Announces New Annual Lecture on Science, Technology, and Society

Guest post by Maryam Zaringhalam, PhD, National Library of Medicine Data Science and Open Science Officer and Mike Huerta, PhD, director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives and associate director of the National Library of Medicine.

In October 2019, NLM invited award-winning science journalist Angela Saini to discuss her research on how bias and prejudice have crept into science. Her lecture examined how racist and sexist ideas have permeated science over its history — and how science, in turn, has been contorted to justify and perpetuate pseudoscientific myths of innate inferiority. Saini’s work and insights sparked a crucial conversation within NLM about our role and responsibility as the world’s largest biomedical library and a leader in data science research, situated within the nation’s premiere medical research agency, to question how systemic biases affect our work and determine how we can correct them.

As advancing equity and rooting out structural discrimination in science and technology have become an increasingly urgent federal priority, NLM will build on this discussion, in part, by announcing the launch of an annual NLM Science, Technology, and Society Lecture on March 1, 2021.

Situated at the nexus of the NIH-supported research community and the public, NLM plays a vital role not only in advancing cutting-edge research, but also in acting as a steward of biomedical information in service of society. As leaders in facilitating and shaping the future of biomedical data science, we must understand the implications of our work for society as a whole. We must, for instance, question how biases may creep into algorithms that connect research results with the public and think through the ethical ramifications of emerging technologies that might reinforce and amplify those biases. As a national library, we serve as curators of the history of biomedical science, which must reflect both the great achievements made possible by research and the injustices committed within the scientific community. And as an institution with more than 8,000 points of presence through our Network of the National Library of Medicine, we have the means to fulfill our responsibility to meet the needs and understand the concerns of the communities we serve.

With these responsibilities along with NLM’s unique role and capabilities in mind, the NLM Lecture on Science, Technology, and Society Lecture aims to raise awareness around the societal and ethical implications of the conduct of biomedical research and the use of advanced technologies, while seeding conversations across the Library, NIH, and the broader biomedical research community. NLM sees such considerations as fundamental to advancing biomedical discovery and human health for the benefit of all.

Each spring, we plan to invite a leading voice working at the intersection of biomedicine, data science, ethics, and justice to present their research and how it relates to the mission and vision of NLM, as well as NIH more broadly. This year, we are pleased to host Dr. Kate Crawford, a leading scholar of science, technology, and society, with over 20 years of experience studying large scale data systems and artificial intelligence (AI) in the wider contexts of history, politics, labor, and the environment. Her lecture, “Atlas of AI: Mapping the social and economic forces behind AI”, will explore how machine learning systems can reproduce and intensify forms of structural bias and discrimination and offer new paths for thinking through the research ethics and policy implications of the turn to machine learning.

As the interests, priorities, and concerns of our society continue to evolve, particularly in response to emerging technologies and shifting national conversations, we hope this annual lecture, alongside established lecture series such as NLM History Talks, will provide an invaluable perspective on the societal implications of our work and further establish NLM’s leadership as a trusted partner in health.