Perspectives

Emerging Role of Artificial Intelligence in Academic Pulmonary Medicine

Authors: William J. Healy, MD, Ali Musani, MD, David J. Fallaw, MD, Shaheen U. Islam, MD, MPH

Abstract

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. This excerpt from Isaac Asimov’s classic I, Robot fictional narrative is one of the “three laws of robotics” that determined how robots interact with their world.1,2 These words, first printed in 1950, now appear prophetic as we as a profession and more broadly as humans cope to understand how artificial intelligence (AI) fits into the human experience. AI is the ability of machines to complete tasks through mimicking human cognitive functions in applications such as problem solving and learning. It is our perspective that AI will transform the practice of pulmonary medicine.

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