A New AI Lexicon: Care
BCNM alumni Xiaowi Wang speaks on the role of AI and technological solutionism in the medical industry as part of the AI Now Institute's ongoing "AI Leixcon" project, a call for contributions to generate alternative narratives, positionalities, and understandings to the better known and widely circulated ways of talking about AI.
From the article:
AI in medicine is often touted as a neutral solution or “tech for good,” and when such systems are critiqued, companies promise safeguards such as human interpretability or bias avoidance. These promises are inadequate, as the builders of AI systems forget that their products exist in larger socioeconomic systems. Such corporate endeavors of medical AI must also be recognized for what they often are — empty vessels for large sums of capital to flow through, benefiting corporations rather than patients and care workers. Moving towards care with AI in medical contexts means approaching problem spaces holistically. Careful deployment of AI in medical contexts is key: for example, rather than using AI as a technical, curative solution for diagnosis, how could AI be used to improve medical billing, supporting patients in navigating arcane insurance practices? The latter is far less splashy, but much more in the realm of care, rather than cure.
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