The White House is embracing artificial intelligence to help achieve President Joe Biden's cancer moonshot goals. That's according to Catherine Young, assistant director for cancer moonshot engagement and policy, who spoke during a Library of Congress panel discussion on Tuesday. When Biden reignited the moonshot last year, he put forth two core goals: reducing the cancer death rate by half over 25 years and improving the lives of cancer patients and their caregivers. "Are these ambitious goals? Yes, they absolutely are. But we also believe they are very achievable," Young said. In addition to public health strategies, like improving access to cancer screening and helping Americans quit smoking, there's a role for AI in advancing the moonshot, Young said. We need to seize the benefits of one of the most rapidly developing technologies of our time, she explained, noting a few key areas where AI could help cancer scientists and patients: — Helping radiologists diagnose cancer and get results to patients faster — Quickly processing large quantities of data — Streamlining discovery and testing for less toxic and more personalized treatments — Evaluating the effectiveness of new drugs "We can use AI to meet some of our greatest aspirations as a country, which gives us the hope that we can end cancer as we know it,” Young said. Even so: AI must be deployed with proper controls, she cautioned. An ongoing concern about using AI in medicine is that it could worsen health care inequality or replicate its existing biases. Young pointed to actions the White House has taken to protect against this, including Biden's recent executive order on AI and White House efforts to secure voluntary commitments from companies to develop safe and secure AI products.
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