The thought of Apple’s AI doctor makes me a little queasy

Is AI giving you an ulcer? Good news! Soon you’ll be able to turn to AI for help with that! Uhhhnnnn... Look out! Apple Intelligence reportedly wants to manage your health. People in the U.S.: “Our healthcare system is broken!” The market: “Maybe giving people wrong answers will fix it.”

Apple's Project Mulberry

Apparently, Apple is working on “Project Mulberry,” which involves a new Health app with a health coach. If the idea of entrusting your health to a chatbot, the current crop of which is anything but confidence-inspiring, sounds like a dystopian nightmare to you, join the club. The club is called “humanity.” We meet every day. There are no dues but we also tend not to accomplish that much.

Before we start popping antacid pills over this concept, though, remember that Apple works on a lot of things that never see the light of day. And it’s not like the company’s current track record in delivering on AI projects is any better than the Macalope’s at learning programming or cleaning the basement out or saving for retirement or... Okay, look, you know what? This isn’t about the Macalope. This is about Apple and Tim Cook’s desire to make healthcare a signature feature of the company’s products.

Challenges in AI Implementation

Given that Apple has had such a hard time delivering a more conversational version of Siri, “as early as” seems to be doing a lot of work in that sentence. One of the most obvious problems with the current crop of AI models is that none of the companies working on them wants to do the hard work of creating defined data sets that route out the bon mots of the picklerick69s of the world, no matter how pithy they may be.

“Ugh, it’s so much easier if we just let it read the entire internet, why can’t we just do thaaaaaat?” they complain as they idly toss lit matches into piles of $10,000 bills. You don’t need an AI chat doctor to tell you that it would be seriously detrimental to your health to hold your breath until Apple delivers on this rumor.

Concerns and Realities

AI-delivered healthcare sounds more like a Health-to the Macalope but what does he know. Best of luck to Apple in finding a spokesdoctor who doesn’t raise the ire of one group or another and best of luck to Apple and said spokesdoctor on surviving the resulting landslide of litigation waiting for them the second it goes wrong.

CNN’s Allison Morrow recently keyed a spot-on piece about AI for CNN that gets to why the Macalope does not believe for a second that an Apple Intelligence-powered doctor will be arriving any time soon. Morrow notes that while AI is great for making suggestions, it is nowhere near ready to be a true digital assistant.

HONESTAI ANALYSIS

Apple’s efforts in health under Tim Cook have been thoughtfully executed and provided solid value to customers (even arguably saving lives), if they have fallen short of all the company’s goals. Adding an AI “doctor” to the mix had best be done in the same deliberative manner, which means taking it slow.