AI won't replace your doctor soon -- but it can help with diagnosis

In the next few years, you will probably have your first interaction with a medical artificial intelligence (AI) system. The same technology that powers self-driving cars, voice assistants in the home, and self-tagging photo galleries is making rapid progress in the field of health care, and the first medical AI systems are already rolling out in clinics. Thinking now about the interactions we will have with medical AI, the benefits of the technology, and the challenges we might face will prepare you well for your first experience with a non-human health care worker. The technology behind these advances is a branch of computer science called deep learning, an elegant process that learns from examples to understand complex forms of data. Unlike previous generations of AI, these systems are able to perceive the world much like humans do, through sight and sound and the written word.