The Unholy Union of AI and Health: A Recipe for Disaster
The usual suspects, Arianna Huffington and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, are behind a new venture that promises to revolutionize our health with AI-powered "nudges." Thrive AI Health claims to offer personalized advice on sleep, food, fitness, and stress management, but scratch beneath the surface, and you’ll find a recipe for disaster.
The Devil’s in the Details
Thrive AI Health has attracted a who’s who of tech heavyweights, including Walmart co-founder Helen Walton’s Alice L. Walton Foundation and IBM’s Watson Health division. But these partnerships only scratch the surface of the company’s true motives. With IBM’s Watson Health reputation for inefficient and sometimes harmful AI tech, it’s no surprise that Thrive AI Health is being hyped as a "game-changer."
Biased AI Models: A Threat to Your Health
We’ve seen this movie before: AI models designed to learn from human biases. What’s to stop Thrive AI Health’s AI "coach" from reinforcing harmful stereotypes about health disparities? Research has shown that AI-powered chatbots, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, can perpetuate negative attitudes towards certain ethnic groups. Trained clinicians are not immune to these biases, making it a minefield for patient data.
A History of Failure: IBM’s Watson and Babylon Health
Thrive AI Health is not the first health-focused startup to promise the moon, only to crash and burn. IBM’s Watson Health division spent a reported $4 billion on acquisitions before being shown to be inefficient and, in some cases, harmful. Similarly, Babylon Health, a chatbot startup that promised to "automate away" medical consultations, collapsed after investigations revealed there was no evidence that its tech worked better than human doctors.
Staving off Critics: A Reassurance that Rings Hollow
Arianna Huffington and Sam Altman claim that Thrive AI Health will take a more thoughtful approach to health, "democratizing" coaching and addressing growing health inequities. The company has named experts like Gbenga Ogedegbe as advisors and promises to use peer-reviewed research data, but this merely scratches the surface of the company’s efforts to stave off critics. Without concrete solutions to the inherent dangers of AI-driven health tech, Thrive AI Health’s promises ring hollow.
History Repeats Itself: The Nightmare of Data Breaches
Even if Thrive AI Health can avoid the pitfalls of its predecessors, it’s unlikely that patient privacy will be respected. Just last year, Google’s AI division, DeepMind, was found to have shared patient data without consent, and wide-scale data breaches like the UnitedHealth and 23andMe scandals have become a regular occurrence. It’s a minefield of risks that can’t be ignored.
The Ultimate Question
Will Thrive AI Health be the game-changer it promises to be, or will it become the latest casualty of AI-driven health tech hubris? Only time will tell, but with the company’s questionable alliances and lack of transparency, it’s likely to be a uphill climb.
