# In an op-ed, Professor Vasant Dhar highlights the challenges that designers and operators of AI systems face in times of crisis, pointing to his recent research on the COVID-19 pandemic

1 Faculty News April 19, 2020 ![Medium Logo](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/assets/images/mediumlogo192x144.jpg?itok=OLoZh-MQ)>

Excerpt from [Medium](https://medium.com/firmai/algorithms-in-crises-when-context-matters-6c87e26fc3aa) -- "Something didn’t seem right in the financial markets on Monday morning, February 24 2020. I wondered whether there was a decimal error in the P&L number that the machine sends out periodically. The number was correct. I scoured the news. Financial markets appeared to be acknowledging the significance of COVID-19. But why today, a full seven weeks after the spread of the deadly virus was first made public by China, and almost a month after it started appearing in the headlines globally?"

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