Promise and Provisos of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Healthcare

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) promise to transform all facets of medicine. Expected changes include more effective clinical triage, enhanced accuracy of diagnostic interpretations, improved therapeutic interventions, augmented workflow algorithms, streamlined data collection and processing, more precise disease prognostication, newer pharmacotherapies, and ameliorated genome interpretation. However, many caveats remain. Reliability of input data, interpretation of output data, data proprietorship, consumer privacy, and liability issues due to potential for data breaches will all have to be addressed. Of equal concern will be decreased human interaction in clinical care, patient satisfaction, affordability, and skepticism regarding cost-benefit. This descriptive literature-based treatise expounds on the promise and provisos associated with the anticipated import of AI and ML into all domains of medicine and healthcare in the very near future.