SustDawg Blog

September 30, 2021

GEN ST 297 | Future-ish | Summer 2021

Summer 2021 Word Cloud

The Summer 2021 GEN ST 297 Future-ish seminar group was very engaged and dynamic. Fashion, the intersection of neuroscience and AI, and COVID were frequent subjects in discussions. This particular group had many students from psychology which provided an interesting perspective during the class discussions and exercises.

Seminar Scenarios

The Summer 2021 seminar students chose to look at the nexus of artificial intelligence (AI) and surgery. The four scenarios of future states for this synthesis are shared below. 

Scenario 1 | By Human Hand. Generally, the current state of things. Humans are conducting most some surgeries with some assistance from robots and/or AI of some sort (hereafter “AI”). Remote surgeries are already happening. Virtual reality training and procedures are becoming more common. AI is beginning to be used to calculate changing risk throughout surgeries. Most apparent is that more and more robots are greeting and serving patients, as well as medical staff. 

Scenario 2. The Handoff. Medical staff plan and begin procedures but hand off to AI at some point, especially to close. AI is now able to identify issues at very small levels. AI is also able to adapt the procedure as needed as conditions change and new problems arise. AI is not fully in charge of things like keeping the stock room full and clean, sterilizing pretty much everything (medical tools, supplies, rooms, scrubs, etc.). AI can also track mistakes to determine if negligence occurred. 

Scenario 3. AI is All-in. AI is conducting most surgeries and leading most aspects of the surgery. Humans may have a component of AI that is part of their overall health tracking and the AI medical staff is able to interact with that before, during, and after the procedure. With the help of AI and AI that is internal or connected to a human, patients may be able to be ‘re-animated’. 

Scenario 4. By Human Hand. Health pods are now fully in use, being managed by AI. A persons watch or phone is doing ongoing AI health checks in case a medical procedure is needed at any time. AI is used in ‘allowable’ aspects of engineering designer babies. AI may is now incredibly helpful in providing healthcare to underserved communities in cities or anywhere around the world.