BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Center for Advanced Preparedness and Threat Response Simulation (CAPTRS) announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University. Through equipping decisionmakers with AI enhanced outbreak models, the partnership seeks to improve regional and global responses to health crises.
Led by Drs. Samuel Scarpino and Kenneth Church, the Institute for Experiential AI will develop generative models which depict how communicable diseases could spread from epidemic to pandemic. Through using “large language” AI models, capable of generating outbreak alerts and assigning risk scores to grade progression, real-time models depict how decisions made by health and hospital officials could stem the spread of an outbreak. The models are part of CAPTRS “Universe of Threats,” which aids in disaster preparedness.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, we learned that many countries were unprepared for SARS-like viruses. Most of these same countries remain unprepared. This partnership between CAPTRS and the Institute for Experiential AI will help close the preparedness gap by developing generative AI for outbreak scenarios. We are excited to partner with CAPTRS for their ‘Universe of Threats’ and advance AI’s capacities in advancing pandemic prevention,” said Dr. Scarpino, Director, AI + Life Sciences in the Institute for Experiential AI, Northeastern University.
“This pilot project of creating a ‘Universe of Threats’ will allow us to combine human creativity with AI in a first-of-its-kind, unique way. The scenarios created through this project will be used by CAPTRS Chief Scientist for Gaming to train decision makers and leaders in how best to respond to threats. This program will target threat preparedness by integrating AI, human creativity, modeling, and gaming, making it an exciting advancement on the cutting-edge of disaster preparedness, of which we are happy to be a part,” said Phil Siegel, co-Founder, CAPTRS.
CAPTRS, created in 2022 by Dr. Lauren Ancel Meyers, founding director of the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, Phil Siegel, Managing Partner of Tritium Partners, and Molly Pieroni, President of Yacktman Asset Management, seeks to set new preparedness standards through equipping decision makers with intuition, skills, and systems needed to address societal threats. CAPTRS created the “Universe of Threats” to address the failure of human imagination, through AI storytelling combined with submissions of writers, scientists, students, and others globally.
