We like to think of Vitals as an running conversation, and judging from the reaction to my piece yesterday on the Human Diagnosis Project, there's going to be a lot more to say about the use of artificial intelligence in medicine — because it's a subject that will affect all of us in deeply personal ways.
We heard from Jay Komarneni, the founder and chair of the project (also called Human Dx), and wanted to give you a better sense of how he thinks about the project. We're also going to gather more viewpoints in the future from those who are deeply skeptical of AI in medicine.
Here are the highlights of Komarneni's response:
How do you know it works: "For over a year, we have been able to see that the collective intelligence of physicians solving cases together using Human Dx significantly outperforms the vast majority of individual physicians solving cases alone on the system." The research has been validated by Harvard's David Bates.
Can it really duplicate the doctor-patient relationship? "Human Dx definitely cannot duplicate the doctor-patient relationship, and that is the exact opposite of its intended goal...Our goal is to help empower and strengthen that relationship with better knowledge, which can lead to better care, and thus an even closer doctor-patient relationship over time."
Is it scientific? "Human Dx isn't a business idea, it's an open knowledge project...[It] is already being used as a training and teaching tool at many of the country's top academic medical institutions."
The bottom line: "This is one of the first applications of a larger idea that will take decades to play out, not dissimilar from other open efforts that have transformed society — like Wikipedia, Linux, or the Internet itself — and will hopefully one day help all of humankind."