At the latest Fortune Brainstorm Health virtual discussion on Wednesday, experts from various parts of the medical field said that once these impediments are overcome, A.I. could be the key to improving patient outcomes, lowering overall costs, and reducing burnout and stress on overworked caregivers. One of the first steps, they agreed, is breaking down the barriers that prevent the collection and sharing of accurate, unbiased data. "It's perhaps the most important question of the day: how do we get systems to talk with each other?" said Dr. David Gruen, the chief medical officer of imaging at Merative. "[A.I.] has a broad concept of interoperability. How do we trust the data? How do we get unbiased data? How do we pull together the data that we have in our arms or in the apps on our phones into our health system's record so that we really get a comprehensive picture? We believe that that's going to be a huge hurdle [overcome] when we convince people that this is cost-saving, data-enhancing, and outcome-improving."

If 2021 was the breakthrough year for mRNA vaccines, then 2022 may be the breakthrough year for artificial intelligence. So far there have been major advances in text generation and image generation, and now investor Nat Friedman is predicting big developments in AI personal voice assistants. More innovation will surely follow. With so much in the works, it is worth reviewing some basic principles of how AI is likely to affect the US and global economies.

But both history and an understanding of human-machine interaction argue otherwise. Any number of forces may work towards the stratification of society, but the computer is not one of them. Computers, especially intelligent ones, are the great equalizers. Humanity has always recognized that the powers of mind are limited, and has always made devices to compensate for those limitations. Our most obvious cognitive limitation is memory, and writing is a device for storing information outside the head so that it does not have to be remembered.

In working to improve heart health care diagnosis, Cardiotrack came across an unsettling statistic – almost 43 percent of a test group that had recently gone through cardiac tests showed an abnormality in their ECG scans. It was one of those moments when you could almost hear a pin drop, as we realized how large the cardiovascular problem is and how the fight to rein it in needs to be powered up. Deaths caused by CVDs still top the global list. The conventional way of dealing with the issue continues to be the most prevalent method, i.e. get a heart health checkup done regularly. And keep cholesterol and blood pressure under control.