Paging Dr. Algorithm
Uncanny Valley | WIRED
WIRED
4.1 • 570 Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Artificial intelligence is everywhere. And increasingly, it's becoming a critical part of healthcare. Doctors use it to try to suss out symptoms of deadly infections like sepsis; companies like Google are developing apps to help you identify ailments just by uploading some pics.
But AI is only as good as the data sets fed into these systems. And when the data sets are flawed, or the results are not properly interpreted, the software can misidentify symptoms (or fail to identify them entirely). In some cases, this may even result in false positives, or exacerbate already stark racial disparities in the healthcare system.
This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Tom Simonite joins us to talk about the blind spots in medical AI and what happens when tech companies put these algorithms into their users' hands.
Show Notes:
Read Tom’s story about the flaws in the AI that predicts sepsis here. Read his story about Google’s new dermatology app. Read more about the racial bias in AI systems (and how those algorithms might be fixed). Also check out Lauren’s story about how the internet doesn’t let you forget.
Recommendations:
Tom recommends the novel No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. Lauren recommends the book Girlhood by Melissa Febos. Mike recommends the album Acustico by Céu.
Tom Simonite can be found on Twitter @tsimonite. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
If you have feedback about the show, or just want to enter to win a $50 gift card, take our brief listener survey here.
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Lauren. |
| 0:01.4 | Mike. |
| 0:02.0 | Lauren, when was the last time an AI correctly predicted that you were coming down with something? |
| 0:07.0 | I'm pretty sure that I'm relying on AI when I use apps like the heart rate monitor or the period cycle tracking on Apple Watch. |
| 0:14.8 | And I guess it does a pretty good job of that. |
| 0:16.7 | But if you're asking me, has AI ever flagged anything that's been wrong with me? |
| 0:22.4 | No. |
| 0:23.1 | I mean, aside from, like, you know, the stuff we all know is wrong with me. |
| 0:26.1 | Ah, well, I'm glad that there's nothing currently super wrong with you |
| 0:30.7 | because we're going to talk about AI's role in health care on today's show. |
| 0:34.2 | Sounds good. |
| 0:41.8 | Yeah. on today's show. Sounds good. Hi, everyone. |
| 0:42.8 | Welcome to GaggetLab. |
| 0:43.7 | I am Michael Collory, a senior editor, Wired. |
| 0:46.1 | And I'm Lauren Good. |
| 0:47.0 | I'm a senior writer at Wired for as long as I can do my job before an AI takes it over. |
| 0:53.2 | And we are also joined by Wired Senior Writer, Tom. Simonite. Tom, welcome back to the show. Hi, Mike. Thank you for having me back. Now, Tom, you write about AI for Wired, which is why we asked you on. But we actually asked you on because of your smooth, melodic, British accent. Right, that's kind. I'm also a big fan of your accent. What about mine? Your accent is also |
| 1:12.0 | great, Lauren. Other accents are also available from all good supplies. Tom, you're killing me. |
| 1:17.2 | I'm already jealous that you are in the San Francisco office right now, in our podcasting studio. I can see |
| 1:22.8 | you over Zoom. We hope to all be back there soon. But I'm already having the FOMO, and now you're saying you like Mike's accent. And I don't quite believe. I'm not quite convinced you feel the same about mine. But that's okay. Perhaps we should move on. Yeah, we're all still recording remote, but there you are in our studio. How is it? How does it smell? Does it smell good? It smells super clean. When I cracked open the door, I was thinking, |
| 1:45.5 | this is like a time capsule to probably roughly 18 months ago. I was bracing myself. Who knows |
| 1:51.5 | what would be in here? You were bracing yourself for the smell of snack fight. And I opened the |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WIRED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of WIRED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.