Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being lauded as a panacea for all that ails us, revolutionizing all aspects of our antediluvian society according to its loudest proponents, heralding the golden age of creativity and production, communication and innovation.

Whether AI technology delivers on its advocates lofty promises or not is yet to be seen, but there is no question the tip of the spear is already disrupting industries across the board including finance, retail, manufacturing, logistics, customer service, transportation, energy, and of course, healthcare.

While AI-powered innovations are being rapidly deployed across the healthcare industry more broadly, vision and eyecare technologists are not far behind in adopting applicable AI technology to advance and improve everything from patient care and data management to diagnosis and treatment.

The Future of Eyecare Imaging

Much of an eye doctor’s diagnostic practice depends on detailed imaging of a patient’s eye and the physician’s experience recognizing and diagnosing even the smallest abnormalities or concerns. The promise of AI is not simply advances in the imaging technology itself, but in the algorithms and machine-learning models the AI can leverage that far exceeds a human’s ability to compute.

Champions of AI innovations lean heavily on the technology’s “deep learning” as reasons for great optimism. As the tools are further deployed, the more imaging and information they gather, the more they learn, and they quicker they will be at identifying, diagnosing, and monitoring progressive eye diseases and concerns.

From diabetic retinopathy to glaucoma, AI is already assisting optometrists and ophthalmologists in early detection, screening, and diagnosis.

AI innovations are also able to dive deeper into retinal imaging to detect even the most subtle changes long before symptoms of any disease present, and new tools may provide AI-augmented 3D models of the eye, allowing for superior monitoring of eye health disease progression.

A-Eye Surgery

Advances in imaging and image analysis are being explored as ways to achieve better results during eye surgery, allowing for ophthalmologists to “see” things in the eye they were never able to see before.

Beyond real-time imaging and surgical assistance, AI’s learning modalities allow for it to analyze vast amounts of surgical data, identifying patterns in efficacy and efficiency that when incorporated into the surgeon’s existing store of knowledge is hoped to substantially enhance surgical outcomes for patients.

Practical Ethical Considerations Concerning AI

Every technology comes with inherent risks and concerns, and AI is already seeing its share of detractors, or at the very least, proponents of prudence and practical precautions.

AI-technology is only as good as the information its given. If given unreliable or outright erroneous information, the AI cannot be a faithful arbiter of what is right or wrong, it can only crunch the data and make inferences from that.

Reservations about privacy and information security, bias and fairness are all very real and understandable concerns. Ethical use and active administration of all technologies are essential, but with a person’s health on the line, responsible safeguards and dogged scrutiny will be essential in getting it right.