In this Take 15 episode, Andrew W. Lo discusses his various fields of expertise and research with Anastasia Diakaki. Professor Lo's most recent work in healthcare finance, more timely than ever, serves as the starting point for a conversation covering the COVID-19 pandemic, machine learning applications in biopharma, artificial intelligence, and the interpretability of machine learning results in the finance industry. When it comes to preparing for the future, we ask Professor Lo: "Do we all need to become computer scientists?"

The Take 15 Series is a collection of illuminating, short conversations with noted economists, best-selling authors, leading researchers, and successful practitioners on topics ranging from geopolitics and whistleblowing to irrationality and outlooks.

Topics discussed: 

1:30 - Professor Lo’s philosophy and approach in health care finance sector
2:43 - Applications: what are the implications of these tools?
4:51 - Lo’s view on the pandemic and the acceleration of some processes
6:41 - Machine learning applications and health care 
8:58 - Successes and improvements to algorithms in practice
10:57 - Computer science – the new life skill to have
13:24 - Machine learning algorithm used in the investment process
15:25 - Are your current students more comfortable with science skills? 
16:55 - AI and human intelligence

Learn more about machine learning with our member-exclusive Refresher Reading (available as a PDF and ePub) and interactive online learning module to explore the principles of machine learning and use Python to apply the techniques.