My hopes for A.I.

With all the talk these days of A.I., the common narrative seems to be to automate features that were rather manual tasks before.? Rather a typed search, now utilize voice.? Rather than use vlookup, now let A.I. organize your data.? Create art from existing pictures or ideas.? Train robotics in real life scenarios.? Listen in and translate and document.? All of these are next level and clearly will be vast improvements.? However, my hope for A.I. pretty much hinges on A.I. finding the connections and patterns that were difficult to decipher in the past and now display those new discoveries and insights in helpful ways to people.? What do I mean?

So, my parents both are examples of some diverse genetics, independence personified, and just unaware of patterns in their health and some of that is due to how they lived their life.? They were not different than millions of people on Earth, however, the unknown is difficult to piece together to make meaningful impacts.? My father was adopted.? From a genetics standpoint, there was a real miss in his health.? He carried Lupus, Tourette’s and they never exposed themselves until he was 81 years old after catching Covid.? My mother was an organizer, compulsive, scheduler, and neat.? Constantly neat.? She also has Dementia and it’s evolving into Alzheimer’s which she has a family history of from both parents.

With A.I., my hope for pattern detection to aid decisions for yourself or others really stems from my dad.? Up until the year 2019, upon doing some genetic testing, we never knew much about my dads health history.? He was type 2 diabetic, struggled with weight, yet lived an active life traveling and spending time with his boat after retiring from being an attorney for 38 years.? His health record was scattered which made patterns difficult to see.? Some records were from home grown systems and some were from some of the best health systems in the world.? But even with these scattering of records, it missed seeing the decades long trends of low Iron, low RBCs, anemia and how this hidden pattern coincided with his genetic makeup and how he eventually hit a point of no return where all it took was Covid to accelerate his Liver failing (where he had generations of genetic data of birth ancestors who had liver issues and died from them).? The Liver failure caused his leg skin to literally break down and fall off at the end.? The Liver problems also backed up and affected his kidneys which started to fail, along with his heart.? His Lungs failed and would fill up with blood and fluid. We drained him 5 times towards the end with bags of fluid that were the size of good size cats. Trust me, you don't want to watch lungs fail. We did. One of the last tests we ran on him was an ANA screen, ANA Titer, and ANA Pattern.? All were positive, sky high Titer and a pattern that indicates Lupus!? All this at 81 years old.? From what we could tell, Covid activated the Lupus gene that my dad was a carrier.? My niece has Lupus and we never knew where it came from. We knew now.

So, my hope for A.I. is to take Genetic data and not just tag folks, you have these genes, these are your best drugs for those genes but to also combine lab and genetics and drive pattern identification that can then give very precise outcome paths that a patient, caregiver or physician can then personalize care for patients and not just generalize care.? Tourette’s showed up in my daughter at a young age.? When discovering this, it’s genetic and it appears to come from me.? I don’t remember experiencing this as much as my daughter when it comes to tics, but there are behaviors or just little things she will do that makes me remember doing some of those exact same things.? Anxiety or attention issues. Or the opposite hyper focus. Things like reading someone or misinterpreting something seems to happen still.? Both of our minds are better at actually doing things vs like a lecture interpretation because we an easily wonder.? Throw us in an actual environment like a lab and we will ace that.? Our minds tend to sort thru every possible outcome or make outcomes work when we truly are being told they are not the right answer.? Our minds are stubborn and we push on when we are told it’s not possible.? So, with this knowledge that I discovered half way thru my life, I now have a better understanding of why I have a difficult time being brief.? My mind and especially my daughters mind is like that.? When we look at the genetic soup from my dad, there are patterns of behaviors or even observations that indicate this in my father looking back.?

I want A.I. to tap the genetic reality of us and help us identify any pattern or potential that in turn could help us drive health decisions and life decisions like what is the best learning for someone with this XYZ.? Coping strategies, be an advisor, point out patterns (ie. based off of this diet and this pattern and your genetic makeup, 1., 2. or 3.), connect with the internet of things and activities.? We want beyond the brain, connections and patterns that are accurate and not just modeled but based on you - your makeup, your millions of years of evolving.

So speaking of the brain…

For my moms case, my hope is A.I. can fill in the gaps of my mom’s mind and can develop into a diagnosis, monitoring explaining, and companion to aid someone who encounters diseases that affect memory and cognition yet helps them still live a fulfilling life.? My mom shows signs of not understanding the question, not able to remember short term, forgetting to eat, incapable of pill management, and has developed a new language to almost disguise the disease.? I would like A.I. to develop solutions to help her simplify understanding where her mind is not seeing it.? Does that use V.R., A.R., implants, robotics that are virtual or physical?? Does that involve just informing her caretakers and helpers with the right information to help her.? Does that involve a whole new way of listening and observing her like when she forgets if she took her meds or forgets if she ate lunch, or who came and visited.?

As a widow, the loss of a partner interaction is a real concern and especially concerning for a mind heading in her direction.? So, I don’t want robots that jump boxes and careen a maze but I want virtual and physical assistants that can pattern identify where mom is at and then adapt care to continually help mom stay comfortable in understanding, not feel isolated, and prevent the “I’m a mess in my mind son”.? I want A.I. to supplement her mind and help her live as viable long, meaningful life as she can.? I want A.I. to help me and others accurately work with her in-spite of her obstacles she faces and the decisions we have to make for her.? And some of those decisions are not strictly health related but are also legal.?

I want A.I. to understand the whole picture when I’m researching online and can immediately help in ways of guidance now that it knows the situation.? Can it cure the disease?? Not likely that I know of but can it develop new understanding of the disease as it gets more data, hears, observes more data and information.? This is the hope I have is that it will really help caregivers and the person with the disease live as functional life as possible and not fall into those constant reminders for tasks but can supplement the living brain and guide.? I want A.I. to go beyond matching the human brain.? I want A.I. to become Brain+

A.I. shows so much promise, and in time as data improves, I’m hopeful that these areas that I have described become a part of the healthcare treatment and can be used to connect and identify and tackle the unknown.? Tackle and make identification of patterns where gaps exist now and use that insight to help educate people in ways where they may not be aware so they then can use that info to improve their predicaments.?

The Health and Care and Insights ahead!