The topic of my project is artificial intelligence within the medical field, specifically looking at how it could be useful to physicians. Some research questions I have related to the topic include: how could AI change medicine for the better? What will AI have to entail to ensure it is a safe option for medicine, and not something that could go wrong very fast? What will need to happen to get physicians on board with trusting and utilizing AI in their everyday workdays? Who is responsible for AI malfunctions should medicine move forward with it? These are all things that I am hoping to look at with this project.
I have researched a decent amount about this topic in general and have come across some great sources, including ones that show when AI has been beneficial to medicine and ones where it has gone wrong. I think it is important to look at not only the benefits to using AI but also investigate its potential downsides. There is one article I came across that discusses the work of a physician at Mass Gen who is looking at how AI could be used as a clinical assessment to determine a patient’s cardiovascular risks based on just a chest X-ray. This is an example of a physician who is excited about the future of AI in medicine and is looking to incorporate it into his own practices. He also discusses the importance of the manufacturing process of these AI systems to ensure that they avoid error. Another article also discusses how AI could be useful, specifically looking at how it could be used to alert clinical staff of possible sepsis. It discusses the difficulties they have already had with that specific system and the alterations that would need to be made for long-term use. I have another source that looks more into the challenges of AI and the lack of trust from physicians, so this would enable me to look at what needs to be done before it can be trusted. There is an additional source that also looks into trust and challenges of AI. These are just a few of my sources thus far but I think this is the direction I’m heading in in terms of what aspect of AI and medicine I’m interested. I think it is an incredibly interesting topic and could be important to the future of medicine so am excited to learn more about what medical AI currently exists. I am not sure entirely sure what digital medium I am hoping to use yet but potentially mapping if I come across something that may work nicely with that. I am open to suggestions for that aspect of the digital essay.
Tentative schedule:
Week 9- continue research and finalize proposal
Week 10- determine how to organize digital essay and start working on it
Week 11/12- create analysis and written part of essay
