By MIKE MAGEE
One of many prime ten headlines of all time created by the satirical geniuses at The Onion was revealed 25 years in the past this December. It learn, “God Solutions Prayers Of Paralyzed Little Boy. ‘No,’ Says God.”
The primary paragraph of that column launched us to Timmy Yu, an optimistic 7-year previous, who regardless of the failures of the well being system had held on to his “treasured dream.” Because the article defined, “From the underside of his coronary heart, he has hoped in opposition to hope that God would sometime hear his prayer to stroll once more. Although many thought Timmy’s heavenly plea would by no means be answered, his dream lastly got here true Monday, when the Lord personally responded to the wheelchair-bound boy’s prayer with a powerful no.”
However with a religion that rivals the chieftains of in the present day’s American well being care system who proceed to insist that is “the perfect well being care on the planet,” this Timmy remained undeterred. As The Onion recorded the imagined dialog, “‘I knew that if I simply prayed laborious sufficient, God would hear me,’ stated the joyful Timmy,., as he sat within the wheelchair to which he will probably be confined for the remainder of his life. ‘And now my prayer has been answered. I haven’t been this joyful since earlier than the accident, once I might stroll and play with the opposite kids like a standard boy.’”
In keeping with the article, the kid did mildly protest the choice, however God held the road, suggesting different alternate options. “God strongly instructed that Timmy contemplate praying to one of many different intercessionary brokers of Divine energy, like Jesus, Mary or possibly even a prime saint,” Timmy’s private doctor, Dr. William Luttrell, stated. ‘The Lord careworn to Timmy that it was a protracted shot, however He stated he may need higher luck with one among them.’”
It didn’t take a wild leap of religion to be thrust again into the current this week. Transported by a headline to Rochester, Minnesota, the banner learn, “Mayo Clinic to spend $5 billion on tech-heavy redesign of its Minnesota campus.” The “reinvention” is meant to “to current a Twenty first-century imaginative and prescient of scientific care” strong sufficient to fill 2.4 million sq. toes of area.
The Mayo Clinic’s religion on this imaginative and prescient is seemingly as robust as little “Timmy’s”, and their “God” goes by the initials AI.
Solely six months earlier, they introduced a 10-year collaboration with Google to create an “AI manufacturing unit” described as “an meeting line of AI options which can be developed at scale and included into scientific workflows.” They added that they’re “wanting past foundational improvement.”
Cris Ross, CIO of Mayo Clinic, imagines crowded hallways. He says, “I believe it’s actually fantastic that Google can have entry and have the ability to stroll the halls with a few of our clinicians, to satisfy with them and focus on what we will do collectively within the medical context.” No small dreamer, Ross sees brilliant skies forward – “an meeting line of AI breakthroughs… with the ability to do the sorts of issues that persons are doing in little bits everywhere in the planet, to have the ability to do the identical sorts of issues however at scale and repeatedly.”
Fortunately, the “AI god” will present administration infrastructure within the type of the new Mayo Clinic Platform, a bunch of digital and long-distance well being care initiatives beneath the course of doctor government missionary, John Halamka MD. As a completely registered Medical Industrial Advanced (MIC) skilled, he has touched all of the bases – graduate of hallowed Stanford College, member NAM, wrote econometrics software program for Milton Friedman, medical informatics at MIT and Harvard, birthed the software program startup Ibis Analysis Labs, CIO at Beth Israel Deaconess, and influencer on a number of authorities panels.
The enterprise he directs won’t depend on spirit alone. Enterprise capital {dollars} have helped launch two joint ventures – one meant to gather deindentified scientific knowledge from sufferers far and broad, and the second “to commercialize algorithms for the early detection of illness.”
The “AI god” is smart sufficient to not reinvent the wheel. His/Her plan comes instantly from the MIC playbook, initially designed in 1950 by Arthur Sackler. Create an built-in profession ladder for educational medical scientists that may seamlessly carry them from Drugs to Business to Authorities and again once more, reward all events with unique patents and hidden incentives, and belief that the little “Timmy’s” of the world will discover some option to survive.
After all, the “AI god”, to succeed in this stage of energy so shortly, has needed to make sure sacrifices, notably changing one of many two bedrock commandments which have served to information human conduct for a number of thousand years:
The primary – “Love the Lord your God with all of your coronary heart and with all of your soul and with all of your thoughts” – can stand, as we switch loyalty to an over-arching synthetic intelligence.
However we should toss the second, “Love your neighbor as your self.” And embrace as an alternative, “Love expertise as your self”, and all of the riches will observe.
And for the sufferers? Have religion that when science and expertise lastly “defeats illness,” your well being will observe.
Mike Magee MD is a Medical Historian and common contributor to THCB. He’s the creator of CODE BLUE: Inside America’s Medical-Industrial Complex.
