From the earliest themes of artificial intelligence in Greek mythology, people have long thought about AI and the possibilities it may hold. With the advances in computation and mathematics, Alan Turing's 1950 paper on thinking machines sparked the first real developments of this in practice. The first proof of concept was initialised through Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw, and Herbert Simon's, Logic Theorist, a program designed to mimic the problem-solving skills of humans -- considered by many to be the first artificial intelligence program presented in 1956. AI is 60 years young, we're only at the very beginning. Despite its 60 year history and all of the hype in the last few years, there's a long way to go.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to better patient care while creating cost-efficiencies that would be impossible without it. But it could also worsen racial disparities, have profit outweighing patient care, or simply lead to mistakes that a human wouldn't make. In other news at the intersection of health care and technology: video games, virtual reality for nursing home patients and ways to identify bacteria's genetic makeup. Artificial intelligence can make diagnoses from digitized images such as mammograms and diabetic retinal scans. More sophisticated interventions might also be possible someday: algorithms that guide robots through surgery, for example, or even help restore motor control in paralyzed patients.