Siri, Alexa, Tesla, Amazon and Netflix.
All use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to think, learn and then converse, entertain, educate and even drive our cars.
Inescapably, as it weaves its way into our personal lives, AI will transform orthopedic care. Are we ready? Are our patients ready?
At a recent Boston artificial intelligence conference (The World Medical Innovation Forum) that subject was tackled by AI theoreticians and AI entrepreneurs from China, the U.S. and Canada.
Here is a summary of what we learned.
What, Exactly, Is AI?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is “intelligence” exhibited by machines.
Weak AI, the form of AI where programs are developed to perform specific tasks, is probably the dominant form being used today. You see it at work in diagnostics software, in the controls for robotic assist devices and in these new, smart remote sensing programs.
A machine imbued with AI, like a semi-autonomous car or a surgical assist robot, is defined as a machine that can: 1) perceive its environment and, 2) take actions based on those perceptions to maximize functional performance or achieve a goal.
AI Is Ripe With Hype
One fact to keep in mind, is that the ACTUAL software behind today’s AI land rush was created a decade or more ago.
Two recurrent phrases we heard at the Boston AI Forum were: “AI is Whatever Hasn’t Been Done Yet” and “Garbage in, Garbage out.”
Billions of dollars are being thrown at AI and much of it, we think, is chasing shiny objects. Also, we listened to dozens of talks by top academic medical researchers who pitched their registry data as a valuable database for AI application.
No doubt, AI will be the new buzz word in hundreds of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications.
Having raised the issues of hype and flawed data, it is also true, we think, that taking many shots on goal is a winning Ai investment strategy. This market is so new, so large that even if 8 out of 10 investments fail, the 2 winners will make up the difference.
Today’s AI land grab is about obtaining proprietary control of massive datasets for which only AI can unlock economic value. Big Data can be an AI oil field. And healthcare may be the next Saudi Arabia.
But not every massive data set has economic value.
There Are Three Basic Forms of AI
These are the three main types of AI software:
Analytical:
Analytical AI is software which learns from past experience. It is a form of rule-based software. For example, an analytical AI program could learn each of 10,000 steps for a hip replacement (THA) operation based on a single, expert surgeon. That establishes the “rules” for a THA surgery. The analytical software then uses those rules to generate a cognitive representation of that surgery. It then tests that representation of THA against thousands of actual operations—analyze the differences, and thereby “learn” and adapt from that experience.
Human-inspired:
Human-inspired AI tries to mimic the human brain’s method of processing information and also uses elements from cognitive and emotional human intelligence to understand human emotions and consider them in their decision making.
Humanized artificial intelligence.
Finally, the most ambitious AI software attempts to elicit characteristics of all types of human competencies (i.e., cognitive, emotional, and social intelligence), is able to be self-conscious and is self-aware in interactions with others. Humanized AI doesn’t exist in reality, yet. In Hollywood, sure.
The first concept to keep in mind is that AI is still a rudimentary product. It will almost certainly become better at reasoning, knowledge representation, planning, learning, natural language processing, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects.
The building blocks of AI are well known, powerful and entirely capable of taking AI through this evolution to cognition.
Those building blocks are statistical methods, computational intelligence, search and mathematical optimization, artificial neural networks, and combinatory mash-ups of statistics, probability and economics.
