NeuroMetrix CEO reflects on the art of AI in the art of healing

Identifying cat pictures is a no-brainer for AI, but applying machine learning to healthcare is a delicate matter of making choices about what will help a person versus what is merely interesting research. That fact is expressed in the approach to artificial intelligence taken by a Waltham, Mass-based company called NeuroMetrix, which sells a novel gadget to ease chronic pain. CEO Shai Gozani, an M.D., PhD, is enthusiastic about AI, but not religious; in fact, he has a sense of humor about the recent resurgence in popularity of neural networks. "I was doing computer science in the mid 80s at Berkeley, and AI was big," Gozani recalled during an interview last week with ZDNet. "And then I went to medical school, and two or three years ago, AI was suddenly big again, and I said to myself, Hey, this is the same thing that I heard about at that course I went to back then, between those Bruce Springsteen concerts!"