For physicians and healthcare executives who are looking for a brief introduction into leading-edge artificial intelligence (AI) research, I recommend listening to the short, eight-part DeepMind Podcast.
DeepMind is an AI startup based in London and was recently acquired by Google.
The podcast episodes are short, about 30 minutes each, and cover topics ranging from healthcare, robotics, ethics, and artificial general intelligence.
If you work in healthcare, pay particular attention to Episode 5 – “Out of the lab”, which discusses some of the work being done with Moorfields NHS Eye Hospital in predicting eye disease, and Episode 6 – “AI for everyone” which discussed some of the ethical issues associated with AI.
The tone of the entire podcast—and presumably the employees of DeepMind— is quite optimistic. This optimism borders on a naivety, which, although endearing, may one day prove problematic, and although they have been compared to the Apollo Project, I believe The Manhattan Project would be a better analogy.
Anyway, keeping in mind the role AI will be increasingly playing in healthcare, especially in the context of EHR data-mining, this is a nice investment of 2-3 hours of listening time to broaden and deepen one’s understanding of this fascinating technology.