Life, death and the AI overlord

The ideas and innovators shaping health care

Mar 21, 2023 View in browser   By Erin Schumaker, Carmen Paun, Ruth Reader and Ben Leonard TECH MAZE AI could be coming to the ER. | Joe Raedle/Getty Image Imagine you’re the emergency room physician in charge of triage after a mass shooting. That was the case for Kevin Menes at Las Vegas’ Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center after a gunman fired on a music festival in 2017, killing 60 and wounding hundreds. The hospital has a procedure for handling mass casualty surges. Menes ignored it. But his rogue triage method worked. His team saved all but 16 of the roughly 200 patients they saw that night by keep drugs in their pockets to distribute them faster and by having two health care workers evaluate patients before halting treatment. The government wants to teach computers the skills of decision makers like Menes, who think clearly during crises: — The U.S. Department of Justice is funding a $3 million collaboration between UMass Lowell and Soar Technology to find the best human decision-making attributes artificial intelligence can imitate. —  A new Defense Department–funded program wants to train AI specifically to handle situations in which there are no clear right or wrong answers, such as battlefield triage and disaster relief. Best-case scenario: “If you can mirror somebody who is very, very, very good in these situations, then you can use AI as a multiplying factor,” Neil Shortland, an associate professor of criminology and justice studies at UMass Lowell who is leading the research, told Erin. “Now, I can not only have 10 Kevin Meneses in a single situation, but I can have 10 Kevin Menes in 10 different places,” he said. But can we trust the bots? “My big fear with AI is that the machine has the wrong idea of how a decision is meant to be made,” Shortland said. “It’s programmed in this way, so it brings the wrong strategy to a decision.” Shortland posed a question: Even if you build AI that makes critical high-stakes decisions better than humans can, are people comfortable giving up control over a decision that means that much? Shortland and his team have asked doctors this question. The doctors aren’t sold. All said no.   DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO MOBILE APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS– DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID.     WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE Tidal Basin, Washington, D.C. | Shawn Zeller This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. A Harvard geneticist says he’s grown human ovaries in a dish using stem cells from blood or skin. The professor, George Church, says he expects a lab-grown egg is just years away. That would be an important breakthrough in treating infertility and may eventually enable same-sex couples to reproduce without a donor of the opposite sex. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Ben Leonard at bleonard@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, your host Ben talks with reporter Rachel Bluth about California's plan to partner with Civica, a Utah-based generic pharmaceutical company, to start producing California-branded insulin in a bid to make the drug more affordable. The new insulin, which will cost $30 for a 10 mL vial, is awaiting FDA approval. Listen to today’s Pulse Check podcast FORWARD THINKING Seth Berkley brought vaccines to the world, but he believes it could go more smoothly next time. | AP “If you’re gonna play in the pandemic space, you have to be able to take risks.” That’s the lesson Covid-19 taught Seth Berkley, the outgoing CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which raised money from rich countries, foundations and corporations to bring vaccines to the developing world in an effort called COVAX. Berkley, an American who has also done stints at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Rockefeller Foundation during a 40-year career, is preparing to leave Gavi at the end of August after 12 years at its helm. He shared with Carmen what governments should do to prepare the world for the next pandemic: — Make funds available for purchasing vaccines in advance as soon as an international health emergency is declared. — Build vaccine delivery systems and infrastructure so people everywhere can be immunized. — Require manufacturers to be transparent about whether they prioritize need or the highest-paying buyers. — Help low-income countries with the costs of administering vaccines. A willingness to take risks is important because vaccines will have to be purchased in big quantities before knowing whether they work, Berkley said. Berkley is proud that only 3 percent of the nearly 2 billion Covid vaccine doses shipped by COVAX to some 145 — mostly developing — countries were wasted.   LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. Don't miss out on the must-know stories, candid insights, and analysis from POLITICO's energy team. Listen today.     PANDEMIC The Covid origin debate is now between racoon dogs and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. | AP Photo/Ng Han Guan The public will get a chance to review intelligence on the origins of Covid-19 that government agencies say is inconclusive. President Joe Biden signed legislation on Monday that both the House and Senate had passed unanimously directing the Director of National Intelligence to declassify within 90 days all information relating to potential links between China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology and Covid-19. The director is then to submit the information in a report to Congress. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sponsored the bill. Even so: The public won’t get to see all of the data. In a statement, Biden said that he planned to "declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security." U.S. intelligence agencies will redact the information they have, for example, to protect sources and methods.   Follow us on Twitter Ben Leonard @_BenLeonard_ Ruth Reader @RuthReader Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker   Follow us

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