Healthcare Analytics May 2024 Digest

Robots, AI, and Brains

I was in Phoenix in mid-May and used the opportunity to get a taste of the future by taking a ride in a Waymo self-driving car. I felt safe the whole time, and it was cool! I wrote elsewhere about my thoughts on the ride and its connection to futures concepts, but here I'm interested in the trend of AI and robotics and their implication for healthcare.

Three things are coming together that look like they're about to form an innovation flywheel. The first is autonomous robotic actors: not only cars, but also things like the nightmare fuel coming out of Boston Dynamics, which are becoming more capable and nimble. The second is Generative AI and specifically voice as an input vector for LLMs, which just took a huge step forward with GPT-4o natively using voice/image/video as an input and output (Scarlett Johansson mini-scandal notwithstanding). The third piece is brain-computer-interaction (BCI), where Elon Musk's Neuralink is pushing ahead with finding a second patient to test on. Voice control for robots is pretty cool, and there's a lot of investment in this space, but imagine how much faster these will progress when people can control these devices with their minds and when the sensors and the behavior model are naturally aligned, each of which provides massive increases in the training data available for the next generation of model and speeds up learning. The biggest barrier I see at the moment is that there aren't good standards for the elements of these systems or for interoperability, which will slow down innovation. With Ilya's departure marking the formal victory of the accelerationists at OpenAI, we're going to see all these ideas pushed to their limits in coming years.

The first place this will play out in healthcare is in the lives of people with physical disabilities, where money and jobs for caretaking will shift to technology companies that enable people to do more on their own. Nursing will also change, with things like lifting and turning by robots moving from the prototype stage to normal (no wonder nurses are starting to speak up about AI in their field). One can also imagine these giving new life to age-at-home programs, reducing demand on nursing homes and putting more pressure on housing.

Sundry

• We're realizing how much microplastic is inside of us (thankfully, much less than a credit card per week, which was totally nuts) and in everyday objects we use, and starting to find out about the health effects. This will probably lead to astronomical, society-altering lawsuits, regulation, etc, but could also be a huge business opportunity.
• Poor Ascension is the latest to be hit by ransomware, though it mostly seems to be affecting their retail pharmacies rather than the hospitals and EHRs. The current state of cybersecurity, with regular big breaches, is pretty scary/dispiriting.
• Google announced tons of AI features to close the gap with OpenAI, but again they get judged on the dumbest things their AI says, like undermining their core search business and telling people to put glue on their pizza. Microsoft had a more boring Build, but basically implied GPT-5 was coming and would be pretty great.
• We keep moving toward more active space war, with Russia launching what appears to be an anti-satellite weapon. Unfortunately, a space war would almost certainly be way less cool than you might think, especially as it could easily lead to Kessler Syndrome, where we aren't able to use space for satellites at all.