The use of Artificial Intelligence is exploding, not just in medicine but in hundreds of different fields also. It has been implemented in homes, hospitals and business, becoming a part of our everyday life.
But what exactly is Artificial Intelligence?
The Oxford English Dictionary Definition of AI is:
“The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.”
So that’s computers…
…that can learn.
Let’s look a little deeper
Artificial Intelligence has numerous definitions but is more often than not used to describe the application of computer resources to mimic cognitive functions that were once thought to be solely carried out by human beings. Put simply, it describes machines that “learn” and “problem solve”.
There are multiple different types of algorithm for machine learning but, in principle, they all work the same way. The model is trained by having data fed into it which it uses to make a prediction. At first the predictions will be poor but after each prediction the model is tweaked slightly to bring the prediction closer to the real value. Over the course of hundreds, thousands or even millions of data points the model is incrementally improved until it has found patterns and is able to make reliable predictions in the real world.
What does this mean for medicine?
At its core medicine is the identification of patterns for the purpose of healing and preventing illness. This makes it an ideal field for the application of AI as it looks out for occurrences of symptoms and causes.
Machine learning models are being developed that detect diabetic retinopathy (the fastest growing cause of preventable blindness) from retinal scans, breast cancer from lymph node biopsies, and much more.
As AI is integrated into medicine more and more we’ll see:
An improvement in clinical reliability. AI doesn’t tire and has access to more data than any individual doctor could ever have.
A decrease in medical costs. With quicker diagnoses no longer requiring highly trained professionals in a niche field costs will go down.
Improved doctor – patient engagement. AI can automate paperwork allowing for less of the physician’s time to be spent on data entry.
Now you’ve covered the basics…
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