The Algorithm Will See You Now — But Only If You’re the Perfect Patient
(text and background only visible when logged in)
In the morning, before you even open your eyes, your wearable device has already checked your vitals. By the time you brush your teeth, it has scanned your sleep patterns, flagged a slight irregularity, and adjusted your health plan. As you take your first sip of coffee, it’s already predicted your risks for the week ahead.
Georgia Tech researchers warn that this version of AI healthcare imagines a patient who is "affluent, able-bodied, tech-savvy, and always available." Those who don’t fit that mold, they argue, risk becoming invisible in the healthcare system.
In their study, published in the Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, the researchers analyzed 21 AI-driven health tools, ranging from fertility apps and wearable devices to diagnostic platforms and chatbots. They used sociological theory to understand the vision of the future these tools promote — and the patients they leave out.
