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File Name | S22-Policy-Stoa-51-NEG-IPNCancer.docx |
File Size | 60.83 KB |
Date added | February 21, 2022 |
Category | Policy (Stoa) |
Author | Vance Trefethen |
Resolved: The United States federal government substantially reform the use of Artificial Intelligence technology
Case Summary: The AFF plan does “something” to promote lung cancer detection technology (getting all hospitals to use it?). It’s a new medical procedure that should increase early detection of lung cancer and save lives. IPN = Indeterminate Pulmonary Nodules. These are small objects found in the lungs that may or may not be indicators of developing lung cancer. Many of them are benign (harmless) but some percentage of them do indicate the beginnings of cancer (malignant). Doctors read CT (Computed Tomography) scans (like glorified X-rays) to view these IPNs but it’s hard to tell whether they’re benign or malignant. If you operated on everyone immediately who has an IPN, you would waste huge amounts of money and take drastic medical risk with unnecessary surgery because most of them don’t have cancer. But if you wait too long until the nodules grow, then the cancer becomes too advanced to be treated successfully, leading to increased death rates. The new technology uses AI to read thousands of scans and compare them to known outcomes of past patients to develop a better “feel” for which IPNs are dangerous and which are not. More accurately predicting whether a patient’s IPN indicates cancer or not will reduce unnecessary surgery on patients who don’t need it and increase survival rates by intervening early on patients who do have lung cancer.
NEG position is that the Status Quo is already going to roll out IPN AI as soon as it’s ready, but it’s not quite ready yet. There are still some final studies and clinical trials that need to be finished. Even AstraZeneca, a company that makes this new test, doesn’t advocate immediately mandating all hospitals use it. They’re going thru pilot projects in Europe to get it working properly and prove its success. Besides that, there are other early cancer detection methods that are also rolling out that are as good or better. So, lives will be saved with early cancer detection even with a Negative ballot. No need to rush something into production that isn’t ready.