Why health care AI can’t replace medicine’s human component

The AMA deliberately uses the term augmented intelligence (AI)—rather than the more common term “artificial intelligence”—when referring to machine-learning computer algorithms that hold the potential to produce dramatic breakthroughs for health care research, population health risk-stratification and diagnostic support.

And there’s a good reason for that.

“In health care, machines are not acting alone but rather in concert and in careful guidance with humans, i.e., us—physicians,” said AMA Board of Trustees Chair Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH. “There is and will continue to be a human component to medicine, which cannot be replaced. AI is best optimized when it is designed to leverage human intelligence.”

The full AMA article can be viewed at this link.