AI could save your life. Or not.

Think AI is all about answering random questions and making pretty pictures? Think again.

Image creator unknown

AI is great for creating images that don’t exist IRL, like the one above. It’s also great for answering questions, although we can’t count on getting the same answer twice for the same question. And maybe not even the right answer.

When Onpoint Radio host Meghna Chakrabarti asked ChatGBT: “How much electricity does ChatGBT use per query compared to an incandescent light bulb?” She got two radically different responses, neither of which answered her question. Perhaps the question wasn’t asked in terms specific enough, but that didn’t stop ChatGBT from rambling on rather than responding, “Huh? I can’t answer that question the way it’s worded.”

So is it really good for anything?

One area where generative AI could have a huge benefit is health care. In a different interview, Chakrabarti asked real human Dr. Brian Anderson, chief executive officer and co-founder of the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), lots of questions about just this topic.

Doctors’ tools

AI can help doctors save time and sometimes even provide better care with the help of AI programs. It can do mundane tasks using language models to help write notes and emails better and faster. But AI can also do things like read ultrasound images of organs, and pre-populate a report for a specialist to read and comment on.

When an AI reads images (e.g., mammograms), it might do an even better job than a human radiologist, because it can review many mammograms quickly and predict how things might look for a patient over the next five years, answering questions like these:

• Should they get a biopsy?

• Is it likely their breast cancer will progress?

AI can avoid mistakes often made by physicians:

• The oncologist reads too much into what they see and orders tests and scans that end up indicating no problem.

• The oncologist dismisses warning signs, and the patient ends up diseased and suffering.

• There’s a very high-risk electrocardiogram wave form that AI can detect but most physicians miss.

But things could go very wrong.