AI in medicine is changing how patients are diagnosed. A man’s cancer diagnosis led him to build an AI system that outperformed a team of experts.
Steve Brown is a name not well known to Australian audiences. A well-known documentary film director, a pioneer in the field of digital health and a specialist in media and consumer entertainment, he was also one of the first speakers of the Nextmed international conference in San Diego, an optimistic center through his veins, held in the middle of 2025. longevity medicine and the anticipation of its emergence and rapid development, which is likely to dominate the delivery of health care to all of us.
In 2024, Brown began to experience some worrying symptoms, weight loss and fatigue, which often indicate that some worrisome disease is spreading. He underwent a series of tests, visited a number of specialists, and was finally examined in detail to reveal nothing, an experience not uncommon for someone who has to negotiate the terrifying quagmire of medical diagnosis when their disease emerges from the microscope of conventional wisdom.
It wasn’t until later, when Brown re-entered the medical system and went to the hospital ER with an apparently innocuous ailment, that doctors then investigated his concerns and began further testing that revealed the fatal diagnosis that he was unfortunately suffering from multiple myeloma, a potentially dangerous form of blood cancer.
AI in medicine: meet the bots
Brown then wondered why it took so long after consulting so many specialists and medical experts to explain her symptoms and arrive at a proper diagnosis, an experience she knew was familiar to many. He was already working in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) – a pioneer in the field of AI in medicine, and then began to build his own artificial model. Using what is called an agent system in AI parlance, code for a super model, he developed a super-bot called “Hayley.” In his presentation, he showed how he was able to provide this agent with all his laboratory and investigative data, and in a matter of milliseconds, in a charmingly empathetic and reassuring way, the solution to his medical problem was brought together with instructions for the management of his condition, a sharp departure from the approach of a typical specialist who can end up in the countless world of real patients.
But Brown’s work is not over yet. He started building further expert AI robots that could give unique insights to his colleagues, discuss and even debate how to treat his disease, and in the first place, the head of the council agent named “Hippocrates” was developed to combine all these expert inputs to develop a single plan of action.
Brown explained to his audience that his robotic geniuses are not intended to replace doctors and specialists. Their goal is to help the unfortunate patients negotiate with the problem they face when dealing with the complications of their condition, treatments that are not always successful and almost always accompanied by sad side effects. For those who want the services of these agency robots, Brown plans to roll them out over the next year.
Brown’s presentation included the fundamental message of the Nextmed conference that AI will increasingly permeate all medical interactions – and the race to develop agents with intelligence that can solve all the problems that elude the expertise of even the smartest doctors. While Brown’s statement – that this technology will allow patients to be able to solve their health problems more intelligently, while they are still dependent on their doctors – should be reassuring, it is difficult to imagine how doctors will not become more redundant as robots with greater intelligence take over our medical jobs.
For those self-aware measurement enthusiasts who want to use this innovative automation and AI in medicine to guide their biochemical, nutritional and hormonal well-being as they navigate their long-term journey, there are many metrics to consider. Smartphones, Oura rings, Apple watches, devices that measure your oxygen saturation, document your heart rate, sleep patterns, daily steps, and more. You’ll need to record your diet, get extensive blood work (here you’ll need to work with an anti-aging doctor who knows which ones are right for you), get genomic testing that reveals genetic predispositions and risks, collect your poop for microbiome testing, and get a full-body MRI scan.
You can then feed all of this health data to your AI du jour, which compares your performance with that of a group of other fitness enthusiasts to provide you with a personalized program that will allow you to achieve peak performance.
I have just one question for the producers of Steve Brown’s agency and all the other artificials who are trying to take over our universe: if we still don’t know what causes aging and all our organs age at different rates, can you solve this mystery and tell me what to do about it? Who needs a doctor when machines can do it?
