9 notable quotes from 1 big day at an epicenter of AI in healthcare

As AI continues augmenting the expertise of healthcare professionals, look for it to go further and do nothing less than “enhance humanity.”

The note of optimism might have struck hearers as hyperbolic had it not been sounded by a distinguished technology expert addressing an audience of almost 4,000 tech experts and aficionados.

The speaker was computer scientist Fei-Fei Li, PhD, of the Stanford School of Engineering. The occasion was the May 14 inaugural symposium of RAISE Health, a joint initiative of Stanford Medicine and the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI).

Li is co-director of HAI and of RAISE Health, the latter standing for Responsible AI for Safe and Equitable Health. Here are some other key quotes from the event as covered by Stanford Medicine science writer Hanae Armitage.  

1. ‘It was quite remarkable.’

—Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of the Stanford School of Medicine and co-director of RAISE Health, commenting on generative AI’s speed and accuracy when he asked it to describe a rare condition of the inner ear

2. ‘I encourage people to push [AI] for the unknown. I think everyone here knows someone who is suffering from a health condition that needs something beyond what we can offer today.’

—Jessica Mega, MD, MPH, Stanford cardiologist and a co-founder of Alphabet’s Verily

3. ‘All of us are better than any one of us, and we’re recognizing … that we don’t have a prayer of reaching the potential of [AI] unless we understand how to interact with each other.’

—Laura Adams, RN, senior advisor at the National Academy of Medicine, on the need for partnerships between academia, the private sector and the public sector

4. ‘It’s [about] putting patients at the center of everything we do. We need to be thinking about their needs and priorities.’

—Lisa Lehmann, MD, PhD, director of bioethics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and associate professor of medicine and global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School

5. ‘Does it work? Does it work in my institution? Who pays for it? Who is liable?’

—Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, president of the American Medical Association, discussing four drivers of adoption for any digital health tool, including those powered by AI

6. ‘If we are looking for improving health [and] decreasing disparities, we’re going to have to make sure that we are collecting high-quality data on human behaviors, as well as the social and physical environment.’

—Michelle Williams, ScD, professor of epidemiology at Harvard University and a visiting professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford Medicine

7. ‘We’re physicians. We take this oath to do no harm. That needs to be the first way that we’re assessing any of these tools.’

—Nina Vasan, MD, MBA, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Stanford, where she is founder and executive director of Brainstorm: The Stanford Lab for Mental Health Innovation

8. ‘AI is a mirror that reflects the society that we’re in. I’m hopeful that every time we get an opportunity to shine a light on a problem—hold up that mirror to ourselves—it will be a spur for things to get better.’

—David Magnus, PhD, Stanford professor of pediatrics and of medicine

9. ‘Doing the science right for one model takes about 10 years. If every one of [our] 123 fellowship and residency programs wanted to test and deploy one model at that level of rigor … it would [cost] $138 billion. We can’t afford that. …’

—Nigam Shah, MBBS, PhD, professor of medicine at Stanford University and chief data scientist for Stanford Health Care

Full article here. Symposium videos here.