AI in Medicine Has a Major Cassandra Problem

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Welcome to Impact Factor, your weekly dose of commentary on a new medical study. I'm Dr F. Perry Wilson of the Yale School of Medicine.

Today I'm going to talk to you about a study at the cutting edge of modern medicine, one that uses an artificial intelligence model to guide care. But before I do, I need to take you back to the late Bronze Age, to a city located on the coast of what is now Turkey.

Troy's towering walls made it seem unassailable, but that would not stop the Achaeans and their fleet of black ships from making landfall, and, after a siege, destroying the city. The destruction of Troy, as told in the Iliad and the Aeneid, was foretold by Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam and Priestess of Troy.

Cassandra had been given the gift of prophecy by the god Apollo in exchange for her favors. But after the gift was bestowed, she rejected the bright god and, in his rage, he added a curse to her blessing: that no one would ever believe her prophecies.

Thus it was that when her brother Paris set off to Sparta to abduct Helen, she warned him that his actions would lead to the downfall of their great city.