Can artificial intelligence help us as we age?
John Beverley, 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 – which represents codes for international occupational standards – 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 themselves—be 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 ontologies—formalized, interoperable vocabularies—that 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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One response to “John Beverley, University at Buffalo – Solitude, transcendence, and healthy aging through the lens of artificial intelligence”
What a pompous young prig! Lots of jargon and only a superficial knowledge of actual “older adults.”
Seven years retired and my only moments of “positive reflection and calmness” during “quiet afternoons in solitude” are mostly taken up by planning chores, upcoming activities, menus, etc.
Laundry, cleaning the litter box & housekeeping take up a good chunk of the day before heading out to social events, meetings, volunteer activities, etc. I’m involved with the ADK (kayaking leader), PSG (Board, Pub Sing coordinator, kitchen manager, etc.), Troy Music Hall usher, Osgood Neighbors member, Albany Bicycle Coalition member, and active community participant (so far this week I’ve been at a monthly community brunch, an English Country Dance, an author talk, a musical performance(that was all Sunday), spoken word open mic, ADK supper, another musical event, a talk about Irish history, weekly Trivia match, and at the moment I’m about to get ready to head out to Troy Night Out, a drag show and a DJ. Tomorrow is Farmers’ Market, historical society program & a party, Sunday is a play followed by stops at 3 music venues.).
I have no interest in being managed by AI constructed by condescending academics.