AI & Medicine

AI and Chariots of Fire

A century ago, Cambridge was scandalized that a sprinter hired a coach. The panic over AI as a writing coach rhymes with it — and will age just as badly.

Humans for technique, chatbots for understanding

I recently had an opportunity to present my thoughts on medical AI at a scholarly conference hosted by Oxford University. I started with a situation that I faced as a patient. After my doctor noticed some irregular heartbeats, I wore a moni

The Lost Aura of the Doctor in the Age of AI

Artificial intelligence can now make difficult diagnoses, detect drug interactions, read medical images, predict outcomes, counsel patients — and even write peer reviews. As these capabilities expand, doctors risk becoming supervisors

The Lost Aura of the Physician in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

This Perspective discusses the changing role of the physician as the use of artificial intelligence in medicine

Can Bioethics be Funny?

Charles Baxter’s novel Blood Test tells the story of Brock Hobson, an insurance salesman, Sunday school teacher, and father of two troubled teenagers. He is a single dad who, most nights, makes meatloaf for dinner and, when the kids complai

AI, Genomics, and the 21st century physician

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to speak at the Uehiro Oxford Institute (https://www.uehiro.ox.ac.uk/) about some of the work I've been doing on the implications of AI and genomics for medical practice today. I highlighted the ways

Neonatal bioethics, AI, and genomics

Artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology will transform civilization. The only question is how. In this paper, I explore some recent developments in medical AI, genomics, and synthetic biology. I speculate about the implications…

Trashing genomics

Katherine Callahan, a neonatologist and bioethicist, offers a poignant warning about the dangers of new diagnostic genomic tests. She begins with a scene that will be familiar to most clinicians, a family conference. The room is crowded.

Outsourcing empathy

Sharma and colleagues report a randomized clinical trial of human-only or human+AI respondents to people who sought counseling on a peer-support website. Both groups first received basic training on empathy, which included empathy definiti

Will AI replace doctors?

Will AI replace doctors? Well, it depends what you think doctors ought to be or do. If a doctor is supposed to competently read an EKG, AI can do that better than most. If a doctor is supposed to build a trusting relationship with a pati

Two old doctor books that won't die

From the time it was published, critics of Samuel Shem’s The House of God have been either predicting its death or trying to explain away its stubborn popularity. There are a hundred reasons why it should not be popular. It dealt with iss

The false-negative phenotype

genomic testing creates the possibility of a false-negative phenotype

Trying to Defend the Living World

Richard Powers is the most scientifically savvy novelist at work today. He was one of the first people in the world to have his genome sequenced. His novel, Generosity, creates a character modeled on George Church, who pursues genomic dream

Surgery is the new sex

What, exactly, makes us human? Or inhuman? Those questions animate David Cronenberg’s disturbing new film, Crimes of the Future. The questions are not asked straightforwardly. Scene 1: A beautiful boy plays on the seashore. Behind him, a

Genome sequencing for all babies? We are not there yet!

For decades, leading scientists have predicted that soon, very soon, genome sequencing (GS) of all newborn babies will allow diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases. We are not there yet. I recently explained some of the problems in an

Data dreams, distrust, and democracy

Modern medicine is both dehumanized and dehumanizing. But that may be the goal. Medicine works best when it reduces individuals to their physiology rather than their individuality. We turn to humanism only when the science and technology

Serial Assessment of Mortality in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit by Algorithm and Intuition: Certainty, Uncertainty, and Informed Consent

William Meadow, et al.

OBJECTIVES: Does predictive power for outcomes of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients get better with time? Or does it get worse? We determined the predictive power of Score for Neonatal Acute Physiology (SNAP) scores and clinical…