TY - JOUR T1 - Does artificial intelligence (AI) constitute an opportunity or a threat to the future of medicine as we know it? JF - Future Healthcare Journal JO - Future Healthc J SP - 190 LP - 191 DO - 10.7861/fhj.teale-6-3 VL - 6 IS - 3 AU - Misha Kabir Y1 - 2019/10/01 UR - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/6/3/190.abstract N2 - KEYWORDSBy far the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.Eliezer Yudkowsky, Machine Intelligence Research Institute1Artifical intelligence (AI) is the future and is already part of our everyday life. Be it voice recognition assistance with Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, or algorithms that filter your spam emails, recommend a film to you on Netflix, screen your bank account transactions for fraud, or get your auto-pilot flight smoothly to your next holiday destination, chances are you have already experienced AI.Machine ‘deep learning’ takes place in a multi-layered ‘black box’ of deep neural networks, where algorithms are not defined by task-specific rules, but are able to evolve and self-learn using pattern recognition and trial and error. Thus, AI can approach problems as a doctor progressing through their training does: by learning rules from data. However, by having the capacity to analyse massive amounts of data, algorithms are able to find correlations that the human mind cannot.For some, however, the use of AI in medicine remains a troubling concept. Science fiction is littered with examples of AI running amok at the expense of humanity. While the use of AI in medicine does not evoke exactly the same kind of Orwellian concerns as it might in, for example, national defence, there are still important issues such as privacy, data protection, even the straightforward need for simple human contact to consider. Doctors are expected to temper knowledge with compassion and understanding. These are characteristics which some fear may be lost in any AI driven system, where patients may find their rights are, at best, an afterthought … ER -