Artificial intelligence in medicine: current trends and future possibilities

WHAT IS MEDICAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

Informing clinical decision making through insights from past data is the essence of evidence-based medicine. Traditionally, statistical methods have approached this task by characterising patterns within data as mathematical equations, for example, linear regression suggests a ‘line of best fit’. Through ‘machine learning’ (ML), AI provides techniques that uncover complex associations which cannot easily be reduced to an equation. For example, neural networks represent data through vast numbers of interconnected neurones in a similar fashion to the human brain. This allows ML systems to approach complex problem solving just as a clinician might — by carefully weighing evidence to reach reasoned conclusions. However, unlike a single clinician, these systems can simultaneously observe and rapidly process an almost limitless number of inputs. For example, an AI-driven smartphone app now capably handles the task of triaging 1.2 million people in North London to Accident & Emergency (A&E).³ Furthermore, these systems are able to learn from each incremental case and can be exposed, within minutes, to more cases than a clinician could see in many lifetimes. This is why an AI-driven application is able to …