[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"conference-blog-article-afrotech-health-ai-speaker-tiffani-bright":3},{"id":4,"author":5,"authors":14,"title":16,"subTitle":9,"excerpt":17,"slug":18,"body":19,"categories":20,"tags":26,"featuredMedia":35,"publishedAt":43,"publishedAtGMT":44,"updatedAt":43,"updatedAtGMT":44,"type":45,"listicle":46,"disableContentGate":47,"disableListicleNumbers":47,"canonicalUrl":9,"socialThumbnail":9,"readingTime":48,"customFields":49,"additional":50,"acf":51},276096,{"id":6,"avatar":7,"firstName":8,"lastName":9,"displayName":10,"email":11,"username":10,"normalizedUsername":12,"description":9,"htmlBio":9,"twitter":9,"facebook":9,"instagram":9,"registeredAt":13},32,"https:\u002F\u002Fcdn.afrotech.com\u002Fwp-content\u002Fuploads\u002F2020\u002F06\u002FScreen-Shot-2023-02-28-at-4.54.31-PM.png","AFROTECH™","","AfroTech","AfroTech@blavity.com","afrotech","2018-09-24T13:05:40+00:00",[15],{"id":6,"avatar":7,"firstName":8,"lastName":9,"displayName":10,"email":11,"username":10,"normalizedUsername":12,"description":9,"htmlBio":9,"twitter":9,"facebook":9,"instagram":9,"registeredAt":13},"With Health AI Moving Faster Than Its Safeguards, AFROTECH™ Speaker Dr. Tiffani Bright Sees an Opening","Ten years ago, Dr. Tiffani Bright’s work centered on clinical decision support: rules written by humans and checkable by humans. AI, she said, wasn’t on her radar because it wasn’t in the clinic yet.","afrotech-health-ai-speaker-tiffani-bright","\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">Ten years ago, Dr. Tiffani Bright’s work centered on clinical decision support: rules written by humans and checkable by humans. AI, she said, wasn’t on her radar because it wasn’t in the clinic yet.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">That changed fast. By 2018, a machine was allowed to diagnose a patient \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fafrotech.com\u002Fblackdoctors-announces-medical-advisory-board\">without a doctor\u003C\u002Fa> in the loop, Bright told \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fafrotech.com\">AFROTECH™\u003C\u002Fa>. By 2019, she said, it was clear those systems could be biased at scale.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">“The shift wasn’t that AI got smarter. It’s that we handed it real decisions before we built a way to check its work,” said \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tiffanibright.com\">Bright\u003C\u002Fa>, an assistant professor of computational biomedicine and co-director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education at Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University. She’s speaking at AFROTECH™ Conference 2026 in Houston.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch3 dir=\"ltr\">Who Should Build the Checks?\u003C\u002Fh3>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">Bright doesn’t see that gap as cause for panic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">“It doesn’t scare me; it convinces me. If we can build these systems this fast, we can build the system that checks them just as fast,” she said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">She compared it to infrastructure. Trust in AI, she said, “gets built, inspected, and certified, the same way we’d never let a bridge carry traffic without someone signing off.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">“That checking layer barely exists yet. It’s wide open. And the people with the most authority to build it are the ones these systems have failed the hardest,” Bright said. “That’s not a warning. That’s an invitation, and I intend to take it.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch3 dir=\"ltr\">‘Who Does This Leave Out?’\u003C\u002Fh3>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">Bright has worked at a federal agency, a city public health agency, a health-tech venture that no longer exists and now in academic medicine. She said the question she brings into every job has stayed the same.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">“Whatever the room, whatever the tool, my first question is the same: who does this leave out, and what does it cost them?” she said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">She sees that question at the center of what Black builders bring to tech.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">“Much of the harm in health technology stems from systems built in rooms we weren’t in, trained on data that treated us as an edge case,” Bright said. “When we’re the ones building, asking the right questions, and catching what others miss, the technology doesn’t just become more diverse. It becomes more truthful.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch3 dir=\"ltr\">A 10th Anniversary of Her Own\u003C\u002Fh3>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">AFROTECH™ isn’t the only thing turning 10 this year. So is the AMIA First Look Program, which Bright built to introduce young women to the field of informatics. She said it has reached hundreds of them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">She traces it back to Dr. Thomas Payne, who encouraged her to run for an elected seat on the board of AMIA, the professional society for informatics. “To me, it was the door,” she said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">“Neither of us waited to be invited,” Bright said of the program and AFROTECH™. “We built the door and held it open.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">Her message to the audience in Houston builds on that.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">“You don’t owe anyone gratitude for a seat you earned. What you owe is your voice. So, use it,” she said. “Ask the hard questions, especially the one about who your work might leave behind, because in many rooms, we’re the only ones who’ll ask them.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">\u003Cstrong>Buy Your Ticket Today\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\">From AI to health tech to the business of what’s next, AFROTECH™ 2026 puts you in the room with the people building it. Catch it Nov. 2-5, 2026, in Houston, TX. \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fafrotechconference.com\u002F?utm_source=afrotech&utm_campaign=general&utm_medium=web\">Get your tickets\u003C\u002Fa> today!\u003C\u002Fp>\n",[21],{"id":22,"name":23,"slug":24,"description":9,"image":25},323,"News","news",null,[27,31],{"id":28,"name":29,"slug":30,"description":9,"image":9},16112,"Afrotech 2026","afrotech-2026",{"id":32,"name":33,"slug":34,"description":9,"image":9},8304,"AfroTech Conference","afrotech-conference",{"url":36,"thumbnail":36,"credit":37,"title":38,"alt":38,"type":39,"width":40,"height":41,"mimeType":42},"https:\u002F\u002Fcdn.afrotech.com\u002Fwp-content\u002Fuploads\u002F2026\u002F10\u002Ftiffani-bright.jpg","Courtesy Photo","tiffani bright","image",160,90,"image\u002Fjpeg","2026-10-20T13:41:48-04:00","2026-10-20 17:41:48","default",[],false,2,{"disableConnatixPlayer":47},{"disableAd":47,"disableConnatixPlayer":47,"enabledComments":47,"headScript":25,"hidePhotoAttribution":47},{"reviewer_name":9}]