Scripps Research Executive Vice President Eric Topol gives TED talk on transformative power of AI in medicine

LA JOLLA, CA—In a talk at the inaugural TED AI conference, Eric Topol, MD, professor of Molecular Medicine and executive vice president at Scripps Research, discussed how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming medicine at an unprecedented scale.

Topol explained how deep learning models are helping reduce diagnostic errors and improving accuracy and precision in medicine. Some examples include: detecting early signs of disease before symptoms manifest, using machine vision to pick up cancerous lesions on scans that expert physicians have missed, and predicting heart attacks and strokes through retinal scans. Topol also emphasized how AI will enable the restoration of the doctor-patient relationship, liberating physicians from data entry tasks and giving them the gift of time to connect with patients, which could help improve healthcare overall.

Topol is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, which pursues novel solutions for individualized medicine in a range of health conditions and diseases.