AI IN HEALTHCARE

A smart clinician will become smarter using AI; a mediocre clinician may not

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Artificial intelligence (AI) will eventually become part of healthcare. Though the A in AI stands for artificial, it can be augmenting, amplifying, accelerating, assisting and analysing in an ambient milieu. AI techniques are unlocking clinical information, hidden in massive data. AI is pole vaulting not leapfrogging. As much as 80% of 41 zettabytes (410 trillion gigabytes) of digital information is unstructured. AI will detect patterns and trends, which human grey matter is unable to decipher.

A neurosurgeon trained five decades ago, | am concerned that in our enthusiasm to be future-ready, we may not look at the other side. Good and evil are two sides ofa coin. Queries will, no doubt, be addressed. Transitions offer great opportunities. We should never forget that it is NI (natural, native) Intelligence which led to Al. In a world where algorithms make diagnoses, wearables track vital signs and remotely controlled robots operate on people, AI should be subservient to NI.