Can Artificial Intelligence speak for incapacitated patients at the end of life?
Can Artificial Intelligence speak for incapacitated patients at the end of life?
JAMA Internal Medicine; by Teva D. Brender, MD; Alexander K. Smith, MD; Brian L. Block, MD; 7/22/24
Viewpoint: Imagine meeting with the daughter of a critically ill patient. The patient (her mother) had a cardiac arrest, is in multiorgan failure, and cannot communicate. The daughter is uncomfortable making decisions because they are estranged and never discussed what her mother would want in this type of situation. The patient has no advance directive or alternative surrogate. Now imagine this meeting taking place in a future where the mother’s medical visits have been audio recorded. Furthermore, you have access to an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that can identify and play excerpts of the mother talking about what mattered most to her. You and the daughter listen to these recordings together. Then you share that another algorithm, trained on 7 million patient records, predicts that the mother’s chance of walking again is less than 5%. ...