For decades, medicine has relied on a simple safeguard: when it comes to prescribing medications, a human clinician is always in the loop. That assumption is now being tested.
CONTEXT: In a first-of-its-kind pilot, regulators in Utah have approved the use of a generative AI system to monitor patients with chronic disease and automatically renew medications based on the individual’s health status — all without human oversight.
This month’s poll explores where readers draw the line.
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Dr. Robert Pearl is the former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group, the nation’s largest physician group. He’s a Forbes contributor, bestselling author, Stanford University professor, and host of two healthcare podcasts. Check out Pearl’s newest book, ChatGPT, MD: How AI-Empowered Patients & Doctors Can Take Back Control of American Medicine with all profits going to Doctors Without Borders
AI without human oversight will go where it wants to go but that would not include any consideration of need or benefit to carbon based life forms -most specifically humans.
Command 1 should always be ease, benefit safety and longevity for all and each human being.
The only reason not to include oversight of AI’s advice/suggestions by a trained human healthcare worker would be to limit costs and maximize profit. The mess that US healthcare is already in, is decidedly the direct result of our favoring dollar-driven decision making over patient welfare-driven decision-making. AI should always remain a tool to facilitate human connection and wisdom, not a replacement for it!