By Megan Molten
Artificial intelligence used to mean something. Now, everything has AI. That app that delivers you late-night egg rolls? AI. The chatbot that pops up when you’re buying new kicks? AI. Tweets, stories, posts in your feed, the search results you return, even the people you swipe right or left; artificial intelligence had an invisible hand in what (and who) you see on the internet.
But in the walled-off world of health care, with its HIPAA laws and privacy hot buttons, AI is only just beginning to change the way doctors see, diagnose, treat, and monitor patients. The potential to save lives and money is tremendous; one report estimates big data-crunching algorithms could save medicine and pharma up to $100 billion a year, as a result of AI-assisted efficiencies in clinical trials, research, and decision-making in the doctor’s office.