Will computers that can learn teach us to make care more accessible & shift our focus to prevention?


What happens when we teach a computer how to learn? Technologist Jeremy Howard shares some surprising new developments in the fast-moving field of deep learning, a technique that can give computers the ability to learn Chinese, or to recognize objects in photos, or to help think through a medical diagnosis. (One deep learning tool, after watching hours of YouTube, taught itself the concept of “cats.”) Get caught up on a field that will change the way the computers around you behave … sooner than you probably think

Jeremy Howard, CEO, Enlitic; Faculty, Singularity University; Past President, Kaggle

mHealth Insights:

It should be clear that business leaders need to plan for exponential change to stay relevant and I think this TedTalk video provides a great springboard for anyone looking to make strategic plans (eg. I think it would be a great starter to a mHealth consulting session) but the piece about how deep learning is going to impact on medical diagnosis really surprised me:

Deep Data Analysis and Medical Diagnostics

While I’m not surprised when those who have passed through the medical education system fail to spot the fundamental lack of documentation it astounds me that healthcare industry outsiders who understand that we live in a time of exponential change still hold tight to the idea that the data gathering part of healthcare is going to remain limited to ‘Physician interviews’?

Why aren’t data scientists seeing that the value of the symptom information gathered will remain limited if we continue rely on the most expensive and time pressured Medical Professional to collect it?

How long before computers that can learn start trying to teach us that data is already being used by advertisers to make us unhealthy and ensure that we become more aware of the need to make care more accessible and apply our resources to preventing disease rather than just simply detecting it?

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