AI Companies Are Destroying The Market – But Healthcare Is The Only Exception.
Doing harm while doing good to save people?
Asking GPT to write a single email for you costs around the same as a bottle of water.
When you generate an AI image online, this is equivalent to charging your phone for an entire full charge.
Yes, AI is affecting the environment, to say the least. It's also the reason a lot of people are getting laid off their jobs—around 600,000 people have been laid off since 2022 because of technology and artificial intelligence.
Some say that “jobs are going to transform”, which is true, but it's going to take time. Till then, we're all on our own, which is kind of an economical problem when you think about it. The longer we wait for humans to keep up with AI, which seems to be a difficult thing these days, the longer the chances of a disturbed economy are.
So yes, AI is disrupting the market and not in a positive way. But there are some use cases where people kind of close their eyes to the negative benefits as long as the positive outweighs the negative. And that is healthcare.
You Should Be Scared of AI (But Not When It Comes to Healthcare)
You could be scared of artificial intelligence.
It's kind of the reason why people lost their jobs.
It's affecting the environment in a negative way.
It's very close to doing whatever you do.
There are people who are getting addicted to it. Should I go on?
But on the other hand, you have to admit that this fearful, scary technology has its perks as well. If implemented properly in healthcare, you can imagine how many potential lives it could save.
Companies Actually Using AI for Good
Here are some companies as use cases that are really utilizing artificial intelligence in a positive way:
Abridge
Abridge, a company that raised $250 million, focuses on AI-powered medical transcription. As in, you have a conversation with your doctor, and then this conversation transforms with artificial intelligence into medical notes. Now, this exists in the corporate world with note-takers all over the market, but not in the healthcare industry.
Also, you have to understand that in healthcare, privacy is much more important. Patient data and confidentiality is something not to be trifled with easily. So this is kind of a challenge in itself when it comes to such a company.
Truveta
Another use case is Truveta, raising $320 million. They are mostly invested in patient data—analyzing it, aggregating it, and enhancing patient care in this sense.
This is kind of a critical aspect of artificial intelligence. Yes, you can take notes. Yes, you can quickly upload to the cloud. But the most critical part of healthcare is human error, which is something that will always exist.
Doctors make mistakes every single day. And that's absolutely normal and human. People lose their lives because of that, and that is true.
This is one thing that artificial intelligence could help with. It's not like full self-driving where doctors have to leave the steering wheel for artificial intelligence, but AI use cases could prevent possible accidents—very, very similar to assisted driving technology.
When it comes to driving, you could be almost having an accident and then the car would warn you that your hands are not on the steering wheel. In that case, technology is a helper, and we need more of that in the healthcare industry.
The Good News
Now, these use cases are just tips of the iceberg when it comes to healthcare and artificial intelligence. But the reality of the market is whenever you start reading the news, you always read about the negatives of how it's going to affect the world because negative news is what actually gets read more than positive news.
That's just a genetic thing in human beings. The fear sense is kind of stronger than just joy.
But hey, there is a reality here. Healthcare AI—people in healthcare are doing a good job or are trying to do a good job. And there is a chance that artificial intelligence could grow the healthcare market and evolve it, making it better, making the lives of doctors better, and improving the healthcare of patients, potentially saving lives.
Not everything you read about artificial intelligence has to be a negative one. Keep that in mind, but always be cautious. Learn, learn, and learn as much as you could about artificial intelligence in order to be able to adapt well in the upcoming future.
What do you think? Are you optimistic about AI in healthcare, or do the risks still outweigh the benefits? Let me know in the comments below.