The Health Sciences Library is proud to present the traveling NLM exhibition: Promising Future, Complex Past: Artificial Intelligence and the Legacy of Physiognomy. This exhibit is on display on the second floor of the library from Monday, January 6, 2025, through Saturday, February 15, 2025.
The exhibit presents the history of physiognomy – assessing one’s character or personality based on physical attributes – and explores its influence on the contemporary artificial intelligence and computer science technologies that gather and interpret bodily data. Now debunked as pseudoscience, physiognomy enjoyed periods of legitimacy and popularity over a history spanning millennia, influencing the fields of medicine, biology, philosophy, anthropology, psychiatry and criminology.
Join us for this fascinating journey into the past, present, and future of AI and its impact on society.
The National Library of Medicine produced this exhibition and companion website.
Coded Bias Screening & Insightful Talk with Jevin West
In conjunction with this NLM traveling exhibit, HSL is providing an in-person screening of Coded Bias, followed by an engaging talk and Q&A session with Jevin West on Thursday, February 13, 2025, from 11am – 1pm.
Film Screening: Coded Bias
This documentary examines the biases embedded in AI algorithms and their impact on society, discussing the invasiveness of this technology around the world, and the harm and misinformation it can lead to for people of color in America.
Guest Speaker: Jevin West
Following the screening, there will be a presentation and Q&A session with our esteemed guest speaker, Jevin West. Dr. West is an Associate Professor at the Information School and served as the Center for Informed Public’s founding director. He is a co-founder of the DataLab, the nexus for research on Data Science and Analytics. Dr. West develops data mining techniques for studying the Science of Science, where he investigates the origins of scholarly disciplines, the social and economic biases that drive these disciplines, and the impact of the current publication system. Currently, his research focuses on misinformation specifically in and about science.
Light refreshments will be served.
RSVP: Please reserve your spot by February 12, 2025.
