AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order

by Kai-Fu Lee

Instead of replacing doctors with algorithms, RXThinking’s AI diagnosis app empowers them. It acts like a “navigation app” for the diagnosis process, drawing on all available knowledge to recommend the best route but still letting the doctors steer the car. As the algorithm gains more information on each specific case, it progressively narrows the scope of possible illnesses and requests further clarifying information needed to complete the diagnosis. Once enough information has been entered to give the algorithm a high level of certainty, it makes a prediction for the cause of the symptoms, along with all other possible diagnoses and the percentage chance that they are the real culprit. The app never overrides a doctor—who can always choose to deviate from the app’s recommendations—but it draws on over 400 million existing medical records and continually scans the latest medical publications to make recommendations. It disseminates world-class medical knowledge equally throughout highly unequal societies, and lets all doctors and nurses focus on the human tasks that no machine can do: making patients feel cared for and consoling them when the diagnosis isn’t bright.