AI, Genomics, and the 21st Century Physician
AI and genomics are transforming our understanding of health and disease. We can now trace a disease from its molecular roots to its pathophysiologic manifestations. In the past, we categorized diseases by their clinical and biochemical manifestations. We developed treatments based on the average responses of large populations of patients. We knew there were inexplicable variations in the natural history of most diseases and in the responses to identical therapies. We couldn’t explain those changes. Now we are beginning to understand them.
What will be left for doctors to do in this brave new world? We will need to develop humanistic skills in new ways. Medical training will need more sophisticated and sustained focus on the self-awareness that is essential for empathy, on the complexity of human psychology and spirituality, and the linguistic and meta-linguistic skills that enable communication. Our success or failure will determine whether AI is more like Skynet from Terminator, an artificial neural network-based superintelligence system that becomes conscious and attacks humans or like Wall-E, in which a benevolent, empathic AI, in a post-apocalyptic world, restores our humanity.
Date: 21 November 2024, 17:15 (Thursday, 6th week, Michaelmas 2024)
Venue: Jesus College, Turl Street OX1 3DW
Venue Details: Ship Street Centre
Speakers: John D Lantos, Angeliki Kerasidou (University of Oxford)
Organising department: Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
Organisers: Dr Alberto Giubilini (The Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics), Prof Dominic Wilkinson
Organiser contact email address: alberto.giubilini@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
Host: Prof Dominic Wilkinson
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://bookwhen.com/uehiro#focus=ev-smga-20241121171500
Cost: Free
Audience: Public
Editor: Rachel Gaminiratne