人工智能落地医学, 还在苦苦求索？或是未来已来？

Artificial intelligence (AI) is spreading into health care, often as software or a computer program capable of learning from large amounts of data and making predictions to guide care or help patients.

Parts of the health system are starting to use it directly with patients. During some clinic and telemedicine appointments, AI-powered software asks patients initial questions about their symptoms* that physicians or nurses normally pose.

Researchers say this push into medicine is at an early stage, but they expect the technology to grow by helping people stay healthy, assisting doctors with tasks and doing more behind-the-scenes work. They also think patients will get used to AI in their care just like they’ve gotten accustomed to using the technology when they travel or shop.

But they say there are limits. Even the most advanced software has yet to master important parts of care like a doctor’s ability to feel compassion or use common sense. “Our mission isn’t to replace human beings where only human beings can do the job,” said University of Southern California research professor Albert Rizzo.

Rizzo and his team have been working on a program that uses AI and a virtual reality* character named Ellie that was originally designed to determine whether veterans* returning from a deployment might need therapy*.

Ellie appears on computer monitors and leads a person through initial questions. It makes eye contact, nods and uses hand gestures like a human therapist. It even pauses if the person gives a short answer, to push them to say more. “After the first or second question, you kind of forget that it’s a robot,” said Cheyenne Quilter, a West Point cadet* helping to test the program.

Ellie does not diagnose or treat. Instead, human therapists used recordings of its sessions to help determine what the patient might need.

“This is not AI trying to be your therapist,” said another researcher, Gale Lucas. “This is AI trying to predict who is most likely to be suffering.”

The team that developed Ellie also has put together a newer AI-based program “Ask Ari” to help students manage stress and stay healthy.

Dr. Eric Topol predicts in his book “Deep Medicine” that AI will change medicine, in part by freeing doctors to spend more time with patients. But he also notes that the technology will not take over care.

Even the most advanced program cannot replicate* empathy*, Topol said. Patients stick to their treatment and prescriptions* more and do better if they know their doctor is pulling for* them.

AI also can’t process everything a doctor considers when deciding on treatment, noted Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Isaac Kohane. “Good doctors are the ones who understand us and our goals as human beings,” he said.

(SD-Agencies)