"Outcomes will be better but we remain masters...": AIIMS Director on Artificial Intelligence and its use in identifying therapies

New Delhi [India], March 2 : Artificial Intelligence is always going to be artificial and the humans will remain the masters, Director AIIMS Delhi, Dr M Srinivas said on Thursday while outlining how the premier medical institute in the national capital is harnessing AI for the benefit of patients, including in cancer treatment.
Participating in 'ANI Dialogues - Navigating India's Health Sector' here, Dr Srinivas said AI complements and supplements efforts and allows scalability and filtering at a faster pace.
"Artificial Intelligence always is going to be artificial. At the end of the day, who creates it. They will always be a slave to us...we will remain the masters," Dr Srinivas said answering a query.
"(AI) will complement and supplement, you can do something on a larger scale, such as triaging system, filtering system, reach out to masses. It will enhance the comfort. It will enhance the spectrum, numbers and volume. We can reach out to more and more people and catch them young and early and then help them out so that the outcomes will be better and we remain masters at the end," he added.
The senior doctor outlined the work being carried out by AIIMS using AI.
"AIIMS is into the artificial intelligence... In breast cancer, the research project is going on where we have a triad system. We don't want to wait for the large number of things to be done where they will go through the mammography, and then it will tell us where we need to look... The second thing is in oral cancers... We have a technology wherein we can look into things and say that the lesion is malignant or benign... And the moment it's flagged, we can reach out to them...In cancer, early detection is important," he said.
"That makes a lot of difference between a successful treatment and a cost-effective treatment... In ophthalmology, the technology is there where you can look into the eyes and say that somebody was remotely monitoring that, and or take the images and say that this is retinopathy, which is going to go to blindness, flag them, bring them and then filter those people who need the specialist care, and then bring them to the places where a particular retina surgery or management can be done so that the blindness can be prevented," he added.
Dr Srinivas said they are partnering with many technology institutions like the IIT Delhi, because today, the medicine and engineering should not be separated.
"We are partnering with technology institutions so that more technology is put into patient services, artificial intelligence, and the triad system," he said.
Asked if AI could be useful in drug discovery, Dr Srinivas said referred to the experience during the COVID pandemic. He said millions of drugs were tested at the laboratories during the pandemic.
"The living example is we have seen during the Covid. Millions and millions of the drugs were tested in the laboratories, where various architectures were looked into and the drug discovery was done. All that were done in a short period of time, unlike years it used to take for us to the way we used to go for drug discovery," he said.
"Today it is possible due to various simulations that are available...Today, we are in a position to come out in a very fast mode...let's say in a few weeks or months, thousands and thousands and millions of drugs are being tested," he added.
Dr Srinivas was taking part in discussion on the topic 'Technology divide, role of digital, Artificial Intelligence in health sector'.
Dr Harsh Mahajan, founder and director of Mahajan Imaging, who was part of the panel discussion is also of the same view that A is going to be transformative for mass healthcare.
"AI and technology is going to be transformative and the only way that we can provide quality healthcare to the masses of the country, is going to be through the use of technology," Mahajan said.
Lauding the Modi government, he said it has been proactive to not just in augmenting number of specialist doctors, but to create digital capacity to reach the last mile.
"Quality healthcare down the line and at an affordable prices, that is where technology and Artificial Intelligence and algorithms and telemedicine is going to play a role," he said.
He asserted that in the future all the healthcare activities may not be in hospitals and noted that some healthcare services may have to be provided out of hospitals.
"They may be at their homes, wellness clinics. The focus is on preventive health, predictive health and precision health and AI is going play a role," Dr Mahajan said.
On possibility of AI replacing doctors, he view was little different. "Doctors using AI may replace doctors who are reluctant to use AI or adopt AI," he argued.
Dr Dhiraj Vohra, Senior Dentist, during the discussion, referred to the aspects of ethics, compliance, and data breach and said they are critical for the overall healthcare space.
Malika Bajaj, Director, Ballistic Learning and former WHO Searo Digital Lead spoke about the importance of technology in the transforming healthcare sector in the country.
This was the inaugural session of ANI Dialogues and was held on the health sector.