As many as 129 million Americans suffer from at least one major chronic disease, and 90 percent of the $4.1 trillion we spend each year on health care goes toward treating these physical and mental illnesses. This financial and personal cost is only expected to increase.
We know this situation is unsustainable. But there are solutions, because health outcomes are not just about medical care or genes. Behaviour change can be a miracle cure, both to prevent disease and to optimise its treatment.
Sure, behavior change is hard. But thanks to hyper-personalization, AI is uniquely positioned to solve this problem.
AI is already dramatically accelerating the pace of scientific progress in medicine, delivering breakthroughs in drug development, diagnostics, and increasing the pace of scientific progress in diseases like cancer. In fact, OpenAI is partnering with Color Health on an AI copilot to help doctors screen for cancer and create treatment plans after a doctor makes a diagnosis.
But humans are more than just medical profiles. Every aspect of our health is deeply influenced by the five fundamental daily behaviors of sleep, diet, movement, stress management, and social relationships. And AI, using the power of hyper-personalization, can dramatically improve these behaviors.
These are the ideas behind Thrive AI Health, the company that the OpenAI Startup Fund and Thrive Global are jointly funding to build. a tailor-made and hyper-personalized AI health coach which will be available as a mobile app and also in Thrive Global’s enterprise products. It will be trained on the best peer-reviewed science as well as Thrive’s behavior change methodology, including microsteps, which are small daily acts that cumulatively lead to healthier habits. And he will also be trained on personal biometric, laboratory and other medical data that you have chosen to share with him. It will learn your preferences and habits through the five behaviors: what conditions allow you to get quality sleep; what foods you like and don’t like; how and when you’re most likely to walk, move, and stretch; and the most effective ways to reduce your stress. Combine that with superhuman long-term memory and you have a fully integrated AI personal coach that gives you real-time advice and recommendations specific to you and empowers you to take action on your daily behaviors to improve your health.
Learn more: Long waits, short appointments and huge bills: America’s health care system is causing patient burnout
Imagine what it’s like to be a busy professional with diabetes. You may struggle to manage your blood sugar levels, often missing meals and exercises due to a hectic schedule. An AI-powered personalized health coach, trained on your medical data and daily routines, could provide you with timely reminders to book your appointments. medications, suggest quick and healthy meal options, and encourage you to take short breaks to exercise.
Most current health recommendations, while important, are generic: Your patient portal might send you an automatic reminder to get a flu shot or a mammogram, or your smartwatch might tell you to breathe or stand up. The AI health coach will make highly specific recommendations possible that are tailored to each individual: Replace your third soda of the afternoon with water and lemon; take a 10-minute walk with your child after picking them up from school at 3:15; start your wind-down routine at 10 p.m. because you have to get up at 6 a.m. the next morning to catch your flight.
Using AI in this way would also democratize the benefits of improving daily habits and address growing health inequities. Wealthier people are already aware of the benefits of behavior change, with access to coaches, chefs, and life coaches. But because chronic diseases, like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, are unevenly distributed across demographics, a hyper-personalized AI-powered health coach would help make healthy behavior changes easier and more accessible. For example, it could recommend a healthy, inexpensive recipe that can be made quickly with few ingredients to replace a fast-food dinner.
Health is also what happens between doctor visits. In the same way that the New Deal built physical infrastructure to transform the country, AI will be part of the critical infrastructure of a much more efficient health system that will support the health of citizens on an ongoing basis.
This would impact not only our physical health, but our mental and emotional health as well. When we are exhausted and stressed, we are more likely to choose options like endless scrolling or emotional eating that may give us a quick hit of dopamine, but will not make us healthy or happy in the long run. With personalized nudges and real-time recommendations Across all five behaviors, by helping us improve our sleep, cut back on sugar and ultra-processed foods, move more throughout the day, reduce stress, and increase connection, AI could help put us in a better position to make better choices that nourish our mental health. It could also use our health information to make recommendations based on what motivates and inspires us.
Learn more: Your Brain Doesn’t Want You to Exercise
Most discussions around AI focus on how much time it will save us and how much more productive it will be. But AI could go far beyond efficiency and optimization to achieve a much more fundamental goal: improving both our health and our lifespan.
How our behaviors can be used to nurture our health and full humanity is a topic we’ve both been interested in for a long time. Arianna has written several books on the topic. Throughout his career, and through building OpenAI, Sam has learned the importance of prioritizing these five core behaviors—getting enough sleep, eating well, exercising, spending time in nature, and meditating. This has helped him manage his stress and anxiety and become better able to stay in the eye of the storm.
AI-powered diagnostics have already helped reduce error rates and improve patient outcomes. Now, by focusing AI on promoting healthy behavior and leveraging its ability to process potentially billions of data points, we’re putting a powerful tool in our hands for positive change, ensuring that technology works for our well-being rather than against it. Incentives are superpowers. And so far, they’ve mostly been used to exploit outrage and increase stress. But by creating new incentives, Thrive AI Health can empower users’ personal data to be used for their own benefit, helping us all make better decisions and live healthier lives.
AI offers the opportunity to reverse the current trend in chronic disease. This requires collaboration. Policymakers must create a regulatory environment that fosters AI innovation while preserving privacy. Healthcare providers must integrate AI into their practices while ensuring that these tools meet rigorous standards of safety and effectiveness. Individuals must be empowered by AI to better manage their daily health, with the confidence that these technologies are trustworthy and that their personal health data will be handled responsibly. This collective effort, with strong privacy and security safeguards, can transform healthcare, benefiting millions of people around the world.
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