Dr. Kim Solez Future of Medicine presentation from Best of Analytics conference May 14, 2013 https://www.facebook.com/BestOfAnalytics

1. Kim Solez, MD

2. Singularity
Course
 For two years I have taught a course
on Technology and the Future of
Medicine, does not require a medical
background, open to all.
 It has caused me to reflect on the
meaning of “Future” and “Medicine”.
 The Gibson quote seems to be behind
people charged with talking about the
future actually talking about the present
and hoping you will not notice. Easier
to find visuals and text that way.

3. Singularity
Course
 Many presentations about the future of medicine
show present day technology related to genomics
and personalized medicine, smart phone apps.
 In the future most present day diseases may be
eliminated. Medicine of the future will be
increasingly about human enhancement and
about improvements in society that promote
health and well being.
 Rudolph Virchow –”Physicians are the natural
attorneys of the poor and the social problems
should be largely solved by them.”

4. “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else than
medicine writ large. Medicine as a social science, as the
science of human beings, has the obligations to point out
problems and to attempt their theoretical solution: the
politician, the practical anthropologist, must find the means for
their practical solution. ”
– Rudolf Virchow

5. “It is the curse of humanity that it learns to tolerate even the
most horrible situations by habituation. Physicians are the
natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should
largely be solved by them.”
– Rudolf Virchow

6. Singularity
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 Analytics and big data in medicine are not just
about diseases and treatments.
 Also about human enhancement and about
improvements in society that promote health and
well being.
 Technology advances themselves closely tied to
future of medicine, robotics, nanotechnology.
 In an optimistic view of the future of medicine,
medicine is huge, bigger than you ever imagined!

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Top ten most popular videos from Technology and Future of
Medicine course LABMP 590 in past 30 days. Vanessa Rogers
student presentation is #1. Nicholas Lee is #7. Dorian Fenton
is #9. Never anticipated such popularity of student videos!

9. Singularity
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Anonymous feedback via SurveyMonkey. Authored feedback
as one assignment. Viewership numbers of broadcast quality
videos provides another sort of feedback, “likes” on YouTube
and Facebook. Michael Woodside nanotechnology video close
to viral. Videos at
www.youtube.com/
user/kimsolez

10. Singularity
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 The technological singularity occurs as artificial
intelligences surpass human beings as the
smartest and most capable life forms on the
Earth. Technological development is taken over
by the machines, who can think, act and
communicate so quickly that normal humans
cannot even comprehend what is going on. The
machines enter into a "runaway reaction" of self-
improvement cycles, with each new generation
of A.I.s appearing faster and faster. From this
point onwards, technological advancement is
explosive, under the control of the machines,
and thus cannot be accurately predicted (hence
the term "Singularity"). – Ray Kurzweil

12. Singularity
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1) The technological Singularity.
2) Existential risks, AI, genomics, and nanotech.
Post-scarcity world possible.
3) Ways to optimize a positive outcome for
humanity in the co-evolution of humans and
machines.
4) The influence of these considerations on
medicine of the future.

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(adapted from Moravec 1988 & Kurzweil 2005)
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All
Human
brains

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 Regulatory oversight that is completely focused
on compliance. Discourages risk-taking and
innovation.
 Health care doesn't have the same financial
reward system. Facebook isn't about to pay $1
billion for the latest hot-ticket item in imaging
and informatics.
 Security always trumps information sharing, and
so better, faster linkages are constrained
because of security concerns, most of which are
bogus.

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 PBS Nova Program reaches 100 million viewers.
 Big Bang Theory (the TV show)16 million viewers.
 Ray Kurzweil TED talk 1.2 million views.
 Singularity Summit, 9,000 views per video.
 Kim Solez – Technology and Future of Medicine
Course LABMP 590 1,300 views per video.
 The course is part of the solution:
http://www.singularitycourse.com

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 They attempt to surprise the viewer with futuristic
stories of the present because it is easy to find
good visuals for things that already exist.
 The technological Singularity is a very important
part of the future of medicine, but until now it has
been impossible to describe how it will occur and
what it will look like in a convincing way.
 This may be the first time you have see a
presentation about the Singularity that actually
describes it and provides memorable visuals.

19. 

20. 

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 .
Marcus Hutter suggests that there is an element of
human insignificance that makes the whole scenario much more
challenging. Also Hutter has created a sort of general AI which
makes the problem seem more immediate!

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 Outside the Singularity looking in it will be white
noise.
 Inside the Singularity if everything speeds up at
the same rate we may not notice anything, it may
seem like normal life to us.
 Even if initially our biological brains count for
something in our mental processes, very soon the
processing power of the machine implant will
vastly outstrip our biological brains. Our biological
brains become insignificant regardless of the
friendliness or lack thereof of the AI.

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 Extreme risk taking because we can back ourselves
up from backups if something bad happens.
 Insignificance, lack of identity. Why wait to create
backups when we have the processing power to run
several lives at once. Can replicate ourselves
endlessly in seconds! No more waiting 9 months!
 The world has little incentive to keep identities
straight when biological brains contribute so little to
mental processes. Bigger not better.
 Aimlessness, lack of sense of purpose.

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 Part of the imagined future could be one where all
disease was eliminated but life was intolerable. Another
where the only diseases are from bioterrorism.
 The challenge of friendly AI becomes just a small part of
a much larger challenge of creating a friendly world in
which humans still have lives of significance, human
history is retained and extended.
 A positive outcome is possible, let’s make it likely.
 We all need to be engaged in ensuring a positive
outcome for humanity. The future is ours to shape. We
need to get busy doing that!