OPEN DIALOGUE

Health Care A.I. Needs to Get Real

Unlocking the medical potential of artificial intelligence requires being more realistic about its limitations

Evan Selinger
OneZero
Published in
14 min readApr 5, 2021

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Photo illustration: Julia Moburg/Medium; source: Getty Images

This is Open Dialogue, an interview series from OneZero about technology and ethics.

I’m excited to talk with Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad. Muhammad is the principal research scientist at KenSci, inc., a company specializing in A.I. in health care, and an affiliate professor in the department of computer science at the University of Washington Bothell. I’ve known Muhammad for a long time. When I started teaching philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology, he was one of my first students. Over the years, we’ve kept in touch as Muhammad went on to get his PhD in computer science and eventually became a notable data scientist and A.I. researcher. Muhammad's interests in philosophy have never wavered. I often turn to him when I need a holistic explanation of technological trends and controversies.

Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Evan Selinger: With so much pain occurring during the pandemic, including massive financial challenges, adaptive responses were necessary. Many depended on technological innovation, from online communication platforms facilitating…

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Evan Selinger
OneZero
Writer for

Prof. Philosophy at RIT. Latest book: “Re-Engineering Humanity.” Bylines everywhere. http://eselinger.org/