The potential of artificial intelligence to bring equity in health care

Health care is at a junction, a point where artificial intelligence tools are being introduced to all areas of the space. This introduction comes with great expectations: AI has the potential to greatly improve existing technologies, sharpen personalized medicines, and, with an influx of big data, benefit historically underserved populations. But in order to do those things, the health care community must ensure that AI tools are trustworthy, and that they don't end up perpetuating biases that exist in the current system. Researchers at the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (Jameel Clinic), an initiative to support AI research in health care, call for creating a robust infrastructure that can aid scientists and clinicians in pursuing this mission. The Jameel Clinic recently hosted the AI for Health Care Equity Conference to assess current state-of-the-art work in this space, including new machine learning techniques that support fairness, personalization, and inclusiveness; identify key areas of impact in health care delivery; and discuss regulatory and policy implications.