State of Health AI Industry in Singapore and IHiS'Role
No longer the realm of science fiction, AI and robotics are transforming healthcare.
Today, AI is employed to diagnose diseases, recommend treatments, and even perform surgeries. And hopefully, in the foreseeable future, AI will play a far more significant role in improving patient outcomes and reducing healthcare costs.
In Singapore, the Healthcare AI industry continues to be in its nascent stages. However, several startups happen to be using AI to produce innovative solutions for the healthcare sector. Demystifying Healthcare AI: Historical Context and the Current State of AI in Healthcare
As healthcare professionals explore the usage of AI in healthcare, several questions and concerns have been raised. This section aims to clarify the applying of AI in healthcare and its potential implications. The Origin of AI and its Application in Healthcare
AI has existed for centuries, having its origins tracing back again to Greek mythology. In the tale of Pygmalion, a sculptor falls deeply in love with a statue he's created. His wish is granted upon praying to the gods, and the sculpture comes to life.
The word “robot” was initially utilized in the 1920 play RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Czech writer Karel Capek. The term “robot” originates from the Czech word “robota,” which means forced labour or drudgery.
But it wasn't until the 1950s that AI grew to become developed as a scientific discipline. In 1956, several researchers at Dartmouth College convened for a summer workshop to talk about the likelihood of fabricating intelligent machines. This marked the beginning of AI as a proper field of study.
In early days of AI, the focus was on developing machines that may replicate human intelligence. This is known as the “strong AI” approach.
However, it soon became apparent that creating machines that can think like humans was a more difficult task than initially thought. As a result, the focus of AI shifted to developing machines that can carry out specific tasks, referred to as the “weak AI” approach.
That is the approach that's most commonly used today. And it's why AI applications are often called “narrow AI” or “applied AI.” When Was Artificial Intelligence (AI) First Found in Healthcare?
AI found its way to the healthcare industry in early 1970s, where it was put on biomedical problems such as for instance cancer detection and drug development. That saw a proliferation of AI research in the medical field.
In 1980, an international AI journal called “Artificial Intelligence in Medicine” was launched. AI would be incorporated into clinical settings in the decades that followed.
In the 1990s, a renewed interest in AI was driven by computer science and machine learning advances. That resulted in the development of new AI applications in healthcare, such as for example Fuzzy expert systems, artificial neural networks, Bayesian networks, and decision support systems.
In 2012, Geoffrey Hinton, a computer science professor at the University of Toronto, developed a machine-learning algorithm called “AlexNet.” That introduced the current era of “deep learning,” which has seen a substantial escalation in the accuracy of AI applications.