I have been thinking deeply about trying to merge the idea of AI/ML and fuse it with the healthcare delivery. Ethical implications are profound. Many authors in the western diaspora have written about “equity” and “equality”, but those are western liberal constructs and completely distanced from reality. While compiling a resource for a write up, I stumbled on repetitive ideas around these themes and realized there is missing literature on these converging themes.
AI/ML shouldn’t be limited to supervised or unsupervised learning. There is a “lingering fear” that computers will be infused with supernatural powers and control the destiny of mankind, and we might have a The Matrix like showdown in a post-apocalyptic world. Far from it. We have barely scratched the surface of neural networks, and there are some initial tranches of papers around auto-segmentation. Remember, there is no clear regulatory justification to use them in the clinical space, and there are numerous unanswered questions around algorithmic autonomy and “fixing responsibilities”. However, defining legislative and regulatory frameworks requires a deep dive into understanding the epistemological conceptual ideas (including the eastern philosophy) and I’ll be using the blog space to explore them.
These ideas are equally important for scientific curiosity and research. I am not denouncing the Abrahamic faiths and belief systems (which requires a theological background and deep knowledge of the comparative religions), but the fact that Hinduism can explain the seeming contradictions much better. Being a Hindu means “seeking truth” and that remains the sole focus of the blog, too.
Going forward, we would see AI as the centrepiece of all “medical decisions”. There are numerous hurdles (and lack of consensus/understanding) around it. If there are western “standards” around everything, it will decimate the local cultures/belief systems, including the increasing conflicts between medical practitioners and the served. It will severely challenge the legal jurisprudence as well that needs to understand and reinterpret the idea of torts, contracts and individual autonomy. For healthcare, besides costs and quarterly statements (and PR activities around deploying “cutting-edge techniques”, it will require a complete re-imagination of processes and trained resources to understand these niche developments. The evolution of the AI should follow from the established frameworks and regulations, rather than “self-regulation” by the companies. By then, the Pandora’s box would have opened beyond closure.
Here’s for starters (and I’d explore more ideas around them):
The Vedic view is that the individual selves (as experienced by different minds) are like the images of the one Sun in different pots of water; the differences in the experience are not because the light is different, but that it has been received in pots with different screens. Instinct and habit throw covers on the light, resulting in variation of individual experience.
In all scientific theory, and in our meditations on the world, the observer (consciousness) is outside the physical universe.
If computers cannot become conscious (not just now but ever in the future), then consciousness is distinct from materiality and this is proof of GodThis will be an exciting sense of discovery.
This will be an exciting phase of discovery.
RadOncNotes 