Humans, Machines and Artificial Intelligence (Part Two: Healthcare) - The Digital Health Observatory

In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker is rescued from the frozen wastes of Hoth after a near-fatal encounter, luckily to be returned to a medical facility filled with advanced robotics and futuristic technology that treat his wounds and quickly bring him back to health. Back in 1950, Turing argued that for a genuine AI we might do better by simulating a child's mind than an adult's. This insight has resonance given recent work on "life history" theory in evolutionary biology--the developmental trajectory of a species, particularly the length of its childhood, is highly correlated with adult intelligence and flexibility across a wide range of species (1) Many researchers and companies have tried to apply artificial intelligence to the healthcare system, with applications including image interpretation, voice recognition, clinical decision support, risk prediction, drug discovery, medical robotics, and workflow improvement. However, several important technical, ethical, and social barriers must be overcome, such as overfitting, lack of interpretability, privacy, security, and safety.