The Doctor and the Algorithm: Promise, Peril, and the Future of Health AI

by S. Scott Graham

For years, technologists and computer scientists have promised an AI revolution that would transform the very basis of how we imagine and administer modern medicine. AI-driven advancements in medical error rates, diagnostic accuracy, or disease outbreak detection could potentially save thousands of lives. But health AI also carries the potential for exacerbating deep systemic biases if left unchecked.

The Doctor and the Algorithm combines insights from science and technology studies, critical algorithm studies, and public interest informatics to better understand the promise and peril of health AI. The book draws on case studies in automated diagnostics, algorithmic pain measurement, AI-driven drug discovery, and death prediction to investigate how health AI is made, promoted, and justified. It explores the enthusiastic promises of health AI marketing communication and medical futurism while also analyzing the inequitable outcomes new AI technology often creates for already marginalized communities. Finally, the book closes with specific recommendations for regulatory frameworks that might support more ethical and equitable approaches to health AI in the future.

Interweaving textual analysis and original informatics, The Doctor and the Algorithm offers a sobering analysis of the promise of medical AI against the real and unintended consequences that deep medicine can bring for patients, providers, and public health alike.

264 pages, Hardcover

Published August 23, 2022

Reviews

[Anne Mignot · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives an in-depth and balanced take on the risks and rewards of using AI in medicine. There's a lot to unpack, obviously, but Graham does an impressive job of distilling a complex and multi-faceted problem into a very readable format, one in which he frequently uses humor to help illustrate concepts more broadly. This is one of those rare books where you learn a great deal and have fun in the process - thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh, the beauty of Rhetoric! Graham doesn't get medicine, Graham doesn't get computers, but he can bull* his way around any subject. And yea, of course there is peril, if you let professionals do their work without a large State apparatus made of political activists like Graham. I mean, since we have an overblown military with nuclear weapons no alien civilizations have dared to enslave humanity.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A needed addition to the body of literature regarding critical algorithm studies. Where most deal with policing and surveillance, Graham’s project offers an intervention into the myriad of ways that the health industry has adapted AI. Particularly useful is Graham’s careful explaining of how the technology works and just just it’s effects.