On Thursday, U.S. Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) introduced legislation that would use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to handle pandemic preparedness and response.
The co-chairs of the Senate AI Caucus said the legislation would establish a program called MedShield and would implement a recommendation from the National Security Commission on AI. MedShield would proactively protect the U.S. against future pandemics and avoid the preparedness issues from the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the Senators said, the program would foster collaboration between the public and private sectors as well as with global allies and partners.
“Given the millions of deaths and trillions of dollars in economic costs resulting from COVID-19, we need to make strategic investments in pandemic prevention and preparedness. I believe AI should play a key role in those efforts,” Rounds said. “The MedShield program would utilize AI to help the U.S. identify pathogens that pose pandemic threats and work quickly to develop necessary protections.”
The program would use AI to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the U.S. pandemic prevention and response in the areas of pathogen detection and surveillance, vaccine development, therapeutic development, modeling for pathogen tracking and vaccine distribution and rapid vaccine and therapeutics manufacturing, officials said.
“AI holds amazing potential to supercharge major scientific and medical advances – including our ability to anticipate and address the next public health crisis,” Heinrich said. “By leveraging AI, our Medshield Act gives us a significant advantage in preparing for the emergence of new biological threats to prevent the next pandemic.”