Where is Plymouth Rock? This question is posed to young Calvin, of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, on a grade school quiz. I wish I had answered tricky exam questions the way he did: “I am not presently at liberty to divulge that information as it may compromise our agents in the field.” How great is that? If you don’t know the answer, at least give them something to talk about in the teacher’s lounge. This is essentially how we are dealing with public policy questions about digital health right now. This no-answers-but-clever-responses situation is explained in the One Thoughtful Paragraph below.
This is a quiz about the news this week:
- True or False: The U.S. House of Representatives, which is in a severe state of partisan dysfunction, launched a bipartisan AI task force to determine how best to encourage AI innovation while keeping us safe so we don’t all find ourselves in a bad Will Smith movie. Answer: True, but Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on how they feel about Will Smith, so it may not work out.
- Who said “data is the new math?” Answer: Steve Schwarzman, the 77-year-old CEO of Blackstone who has donated more than half a billion dollars to AI research and education, including enough dollars to get MIT to name a college of computing after him.
- What should we do about the fact that technology companies can sell and share private health information when people download their health data (like their medical records) onto an app because that means that the HIPAA privacy rule no longer applies? Answer: Technology companies should tell people that they get to do things like sell their health information to interested buyers if they feel like it, according to a new report released by the ranking member of the U.S. Senate HELP Committee.
In the timeless and hilarious Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, Calvin uses cardboard boxes to create awesome adventures. In addition to the obvious applications (i.e., a flying time machine, a duplicator, or a transmogrifier), Calvin sometimes attaches a few wires and grabs a colander from the kitchen to make the cardboard box into things like a “Cerebral Enhance-o-tron.” I am fairly sure (but it could be a rumor) that this is how Elon Musk came up with the Neuralink idea (a brain implant to help humans use their neural signals to control external technologies). He announced this week that the first patient to get the implant can now control a computer mouse just by thinking. This device is an example of how digital health is at once miraculous and terrifying. This is why it is good that groups are being launched that can explore how to handle all this terrifying wonderfulness, like the Peterson Health Technology Institute’s new Digital Health Collaborative. Participants include several major acronyms, whose spelled-out names will be the subject of next week’s quiz: AHIP, AMA, ATA, CTA, DiMe, and NCQA. Before this collaborative begins its work, may we suggest reviewing Calvin’s clever solution to an impossible homework assignment? As MIT wisely republished here, Calvin delegated the impossible project to an imaginary friend.
