The advent of generative artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT has sparked new calls for AI in healthcare, and its support base only seems to be widening.
the second annual MIT-MGB AI Cures Conferenceorganized on April 24 by the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (Jameel Clinic), saw its attendance nearly double this year, with over 500 attendees from a variety of backgrounds in computing, medicine, pharmaceuticals and politics.
In contrast to the cloudy Boston weather that morning, many of the speakers took an optimistic view of AI in healthcare, reiterating two key ideas throughout the day: that AI has the potential to create a more fair and that the AI will win. I won’t be replacing doctors anytime soon, but doctors who know how to use AI will eventually replace doctors who don’t incorporate AI into their daily practice.
“Collaborations with our partners in government, especially collaborations at the intersection of policy and innovation, are critical to our work,” MIT Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart stated in her opening remarks to the audience. “All the pioneering activity you’ll hear about today leaves me very hopeful for the future of human health.”
Statements from Massachusetts General Brigham (MGB) President and CEO Anne Klibanski reflected similar optimism: “We have visionaries here in AI, we have visionaries here in healthcare. If this group can’t come together in a meaningful way to impact healthcare, we have to ask why we’re here…this is a time when we need to rethink healthcare.” Klibanski drew attention to the work of Jameel Clinic AI Faculty Leader, AI Cures Co-Chair and MIT Professor Regina Barzilay, and Director of MGB’s Center for Innovation in Cancer Early Detection, Lecia Sequist, whose research on lung cancer risk assessment is an example of how the continued collaboration between MIT and MGB could lead to fruitful results for the future of AI in medicine.
“Will AI be the cure all with our health care system in crisis?” asked newly inaugurated Massachusetts Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh. “I don’t think so, but I think it’s a great place to start.” Walsh highlighted the pandemic as a wake-up call for the health care system and focused on the potential for AI to establish more equitable care, particularly for people with disabilities, as well as augment an already ready workforce. overwhelmed “We absolutely have to do better… AI can look across populations and develop insights into where the health care system is failing us and redeploy the health care system so it can do more.”
Barzilay called out the marked absence of AI in healthcare today with a reference to the Law without surprises implemented last year, which requires insurance companies to be transparent about billing codes. “The FDA has approved more than 500 AI tools in the past few years, and of the 500 models, only 10 have associated billing codes that are actually used,” he said. “What this shows is that the outcome of AI in patients is really limited, and my hope is that this conference brings together people who develop AI, doctors who are the ones who bring innovation to patients, regulators and biotech people. that translate these innovations into products. . With this forum we have the opportunity to change that.”
Despite the enthusiasm, speakers did not sugarcoat potential risks or downplay safety in the development and deployment of clinical AI tools.
“There are those who think that AI will solve all the world’s health care problems, replace the world’s doctors and revolutionize health care. And then there is the other side of the spectrum that says how bad AI is for our economy and how it is going to take over the world, developing an intelligence of its own,” Jameel Clinic Principal Investigator, AI Cures Speaker, and Collin Professor at MIT. Stultz said. “None of these concepts are new, but like most things in life, the truth lies somewhere in between.”
“There are always potential unintended consequences,” Cambridge Health Alliance chief executive and Cambridge Public Health Commissioner Assaad Sayah said during the conference’s regulatory panel. “At the end of the day, it’s hard to predict what the potential consequences are and have the appropriate safeguards in place…a lot of things are really inappropriately unfair to certain subpopulations…there’s so much data that it’s been hard to contain. I implore everyone to have this into account.”
