The 211-year-old New England Journal of Medicine has birthed an online-only monthly journal that will take on “some of the most pressing questions in medicine through the application of AI in the clinic.”

Cynthia Rudin, PhD, is a highly regarded computer scientist who’s been eyeing the advance of artificial intelligence into society with equal parts enthusiasm and concern.  

When human counselors are unavailable to provide work-based wellness coaching, robots can substitute—as long as the workers are comfortable with emerging technologies and the machines aren’t overly humanlike.

Along with expanding research into large-language models to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPC, the search-engine king is working on AI for improving maternal care, ultrasound access and tuberculosis screening.

Wary consumers can be convinced to allow AI into their healthcare habits by communications campaigns tuned to the ancient rhetorical categories of ethos, pathos and logos. 

Researchers across the pond have developed and externally validated an AI model that can predict flareups of ulcerative colitis. 

By now it’s a difficult-to-dispute likelihood: AI won’t replace doctors making diagnoses, but doctors who use AI will displace doctors who don’t use AI. The hypothesis gets a fresh airing out from the vantage point of the general public. 

Does the future of digital healthcare lie with biocomputers powered by engineered cultures derived from human brain cells? If so, it’s already underway in Baltimore.