ARTICLE
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN HEALTHCARE DESIGN BY STEPHEN PARKER
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atching any of the latest sci-fi shows and movies gives us a glimpse of an exciting world where technology has eased everyday life, solved all of our health problems and, on occasion, helped us find love along the way. (OK, Cupid has to evolve, right?) Our everyday experience with technology is rarely so seamless. It’s not to say technology hasn’t revolutionized life as we know it, but where are the flying cars and artificially intelligence (AI) (no Skynet please) that the Jetson's once promised? Last fall, SmithGroupJJR launched its inaugural IdeaLab, using speculative futures thinking to answer questions about how our future healthcare will be delivered and designed. Specifically, it asked, “Can you design a clinic that is run entirely by artificial intelligence, with little or perhaps no human interaction?” From across the firm, nine designers and planners were brought together to address this question as three distinct teams. Each team was given a persona, or fictional user, to guide their thinking. Team Karla, composed of Sally Whitely, RIBA LEED AP; Alise Robles, Associate AIA; and Stephen Parker, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP BD+C, developed a solution for redesigning retail healthcare in the year 2025. In lieu of a white paper, our team developed a graphic novel to convey our ideas and narrate the life of our fictional patient, Karla, on her journey through a healthcare network empowered by artificial intelligence. This is Karla’s story... 1
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CONNECTION
Karla’s life is connected by a network of distinct A.I.s that will have to work together to give her the services she needs. From home to work to her neighborhood clinic, these A.I.s will need guidelines to organize their activities and focus their efforts on Karla’s health, so we developed Wellness Goals in Karla's new "Profile". 3
THE ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN JOURNAL OF THE YOUNG ARCHITECTS FORUM