Artificial Intelligence is not general intelligence. Current medical imaging AI has a narrow application. 
This idea made me think about Kim Peek – the character that Dustin Hoffman played in “Rain Man.”
Peek was born in Salt Lake City in 1951. He was not able to walk until age 4, could not button his own shirt. By age 18 he had a job doing payroll for a company with 160 employees. It took him only a few hours a week and he performed all the necessary calculations in his head.
He had a measured IQ of only 87.
He could read both pages of an open book at once. His left eye reading the left page and his right eye reading the right. Think books could be filtered into his brain in under an hour.
He could provide instant driving directions between any two cities in the world, (before Google Maps) using near perfect recall and his prodigious mathematical calculating abilities, Kim could calculate the best routes in his head in an instant.
He could recite any Shakespeare play verbatim.
The card counting scene from “Rain Man” never happened but Peek did read a book on card counting and had all the mental faculties to perform that feat, but even a savant like Peek knew right from wrong
There is another unusual mental gift that may help us understand AI and our understanding of it.
Synesthesia is when you hear music, but you see shapes. Or you hear a word or a name and instantly see a color. Synesthesia is a fancy name for when you experience one of your senses through another. For example, you might hear the name “Alex” and see green. Or you might read the word “street” and taste citrus fruit.
The word “synesthesia” has Greek roots. It translates to “perceive together.” People who have this ability are called synesthetes. Synesthesia isn’t a disease or disorder. It won’t harm your health, and it doesn’t mean you’re mentally ill. Some studies suggest people who have it may do better on memory and intelligence tests than those who don’t. And while it may seem easy to make up, there’s proof that it’s a real condition.
One of the most common responses is to see letters, numbers or sounds as colors. You might also:
- See or hear a word and taste food
- See a shape and taste food
- Hear sounds and see shapes or patterns
- Hear sounds after you smell a certain scent
- Hear sounds and taste food
- Feel an object with your hands and hear a sound
- Feel a touch when seeing someone else being touched. (This is called mirror touch.)
This is where AI can help in health care. Not just seeing or hearing but in the combination of these receptors into a new langue to find patterns that our brain does not understand or that to which we cannot comprehend yet.
Theragnostics is an example of of synesthesia thinking in medicine. I look forward to seeing how AI can broaden our perspective and understanding of the human body. I can see new and innovative treatments for human frailties that are not currently available.
We must think differently and appreciate the savant in AI like we did Peek. Know the limitation and enjoy the expanded abilities.
Mark Watts is an experienced imaging professional who founded an AI company called Zenlike.ai.
