Risks and benefits of an AI revolution in medicine

Third in a series that taps the expertise of the Harvard community to examine the promise and potential pitfalls of the coming age of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The news is bad: "I'm sorry, but you have cancer." Those unwelcome words sink in for a few minutes, and then your doctor begins describing recent advances in artificial intelligence, advances that let her compare your case to the cases of every other patient who's ever had the same kind of cancer. She says she's found the most effective treatment, one best suited for the specific genetic subtype of the disease in someone with your genetic background -- truly personalized medicine. And the prognosis is good.