Can artificial intelligence help us as we age?
John Beverly, Co-Director of the National Center for Ontological Research and assistant professor at the University at Buffalo, examines.
Dr. Beverley’s work is at the intersection of ontology engineering, formal logic, and ethics. Alongside his affiliations, Dr. Beverley is the co-lead developer for the Basic Formal Ontology (ISO/IEC 21838-2), a common language used by over 700 knowledge representation projects, such as the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) and Industrial Ontologies Foundry. Dr. Beverley has worked with numerous groups curating, creating, and applying knowledge representation artifacts to semantic interoperability challenges, supporting efforts to identify vaccine and drug treatment options for COVID-19, updating the widely-used Infectious Disease Ontology, developing the Virus Infectious Disease Ontology extension, and developing the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology which extends from it. He has additionally developed the Occupation Ontology ā which represents codes for international occupational standards ā and created the first Large-Language Model Bias Ontology.
Solitude, transcendence, and healthy aging through the lens of artificial intelligence
Imagine an older adult, recently retired, spending quiet afternoons in solitude. For some older adults, such time alone can result in positive reflection and calmness, fostering a sense of peace and meaningfulness. For others, it may result in feelings of isolation, disconnection, or anxiety. Similarly, as people age, many experience a shift in feelings of connectedness to something greater than themselvesābe it future generations, their legacy, or indeed the universe. The latter is often associated with enhanced connection, life satisfaction, and mental health, while the former has a broad spectrum of outcomes for older adults, both positive and negative. Despite overlap, these fields have operated in silos, resulting in fragmented insights and missed opportunities for meaningful intervention.
The Promoting Healthy Aging through Semantic Enrichment of Solitude Research (PHASES) project aims to connect these research areas in the interest of promoting healthy aging. PHASES bridges this gap by developing ontologiesāformalized, interoperable vocabulariesāthat standardize key constructs, theories, and measurements in both fields. These ontologies will illuminate the nuanced relationships between solitude and transcendence, identifying critical gaps and facilitating the creation of novel interventions to support healthy aging.
Central to PHASES is the creation of a publicly accessible web portal designed to ease access to results from research on solitude and transcendence, enabling community partners, researchers, and interested individuals to uncover new connections and insights. The portal will support exploration through a recommender system for research themes and a natural language-based question-answering system powered by generative underwritten by knowledge graphs.
Healthy aging is like a symphony, with solitude as the quiet notes of introspection, and transcendence the soaring melodies of connection and purpose. We envision artificial intelligence as something like a skilled conductor, harmonizing elements into a masterful composition to enrich the lives of older adults.
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