Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare: An Intensivist’s Perspective

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been put forth as a technological innovation which can change the way in which healthcare will be delivered in the near future. AI developers plan to deploy tools that will aid diagnosis, improve therapy, minimize errors, increase safety, and optimize systems and bring down costs. In addition, a paradigmatic shift in the scientific method has been suggested where causation will be inferred by empirical methods from data. A more cautious view suggests that the epistemic basis of AI and the predictions based on AI need independent external validation prior to widespread use. Whether the aim of the AI developers and the society it serves are aligned is difficult to ascertain as there exists a technological and information asymmetry between the AI developers and public stakeholders.