Bridging the gap between the technological singularity and mainstream medicine: highlighting a course on technology and the future of medicine

Abstract

The "technological singularity" is defined as that putative point in time forecasted to occur in the mid twenty-first century when machines will become smarter than humans, leading humans and machines to merge. It is hypothesized that this event will have a profound influence on medicine and population health. This work describes a new course on Technology and the Future of Medicine developed by a diverse, multi-disciplinary group of faculty members at a Canadian university. The course began as a continuous professional learning course and was later established as a recognized graduate course. We describe the philosophy of the course, the barriers encountered in course development, and some of the idiosyncratic solutions that were developed to overcome these, including the use of YouTube audience retention analytics. We hope that this report might provide a useful template for other institutions attempting to set up similar programs.

Figure 1

Audience retention peak corresponding to “All the textbooks will be rewritten” statement in Quantum Biology lecture by Jack Tuszynski

Figure 2

Audience retention peak corresponding to description of the intellectual life of a mouse and intelligence versus super-intelligence from the first lecture on Artificial Intelligence by Osmar Zaiane

Figure 3

Audience retention peak corresponding to student discussion of the FRET technique of studying protein interactions using fluorescence from Entrepreneurship in Medicine Workshop by Shawna Pandya

Figure 4

Audience retention peak corresponding to student team from the Entrepreneurship Workshop describing their new company “Selective Telecommunications For Us” and its main product the Subtransmuter 1000

Figure 5

Audience retention peak from the reference to the Terrafugia flying car in the Entrepreneurship in Medicine/Engineering the Future lecture by Shawna Pandya