How AI is powering a revolution in medical diagnostics

Slowly but surely, artificial intelligence is infiltrating almost every aspect of our lives. It is already busy in the background of many routine tasks, powering virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, recommendations from Amazon and Netflix, and underpinning billions of Google searches each day. But as the technology matures, AI’s impact will become more profound, and nowhere is that more apparent than in healthcare.

Healthcare’s data-heavy nature makes it an ideal candidate for the application of AI across multiple disciplines, from diagnosis and pathology to drug discovery and epidemiology. At the same time, the sensitivity of medical data raises fundamental questions around privacy and security. This juxtaposition makes healthcare one of AI’s most exciting frontiers and also potentially one of its most dangerous.

“You could look at almost any area of healthcare and see that advanced data science – if I could put it that way – has an enormous amount to offer,” Sir Mark Walport, chief executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), told The Engineer. “This technology has huge potential right across the world of healthcare.”