Applications of artificial intelligence to healthcare have been exploding over the last year. With the advent of AI and machine learning techniques, where should society focus its efforts? Can AI/machine learning bring new, personalized treatments to patients in dire need? Are these computational approaches truly the expected disruption that will speed the time and lower the cost of drug development? Will this revolution save the backwards biopharmaceutical R&D industry and rewrite their entire business model? Or will human biology ultimately outsmart our best efforts to decode it algorithmically?

Many discussions around AI are devoted to fields such as robots and driverless cars. However, AI can revolutionize gargantuan incumbent industries such as healthcare. This session aims to enlighten the audience on such an important application of AI. The objectives will be to describe and illustrate some of the current applications of AI/ML to biomedical R&D, discuss what is reasonable to expect from the technology in the medium- to long-term, and provide insight into what’s needed in the ecosystem to maximize the promise of these computational approaches.

[Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.]