 |
From Watson to Theranos: AI and Healthcare vs. NNs and BIO
"All changed, changed utterly...." - W.B. Yeats, "Easter, 1916" By Mark Anderson
There is essentially no question that, despite recent Wall Street gyrations, the engagement between artificial intelligence (AI) and healthcare is the most dynamic and exciting arena in technology today. More money is being invested in more companies, from startups to public firms, and more of it is chasing this fascinating new nexus of activity. Advanced compute systems of all kinds, including but not limited to neural networks, are creating a pivot in the history of healthcare and the sciences and economic models that drive it. Unfortunately, as with all human activities, this has created the usual share of cons and hyper-marketing for the wrong companies and products - something I'll discuss shortly. But at the top of this issue, it's even more important to briefly underline the reasons for optimism and excitement in these fields, before we look at what has failed to date and why. |
