Technology for a Better Future

Hello everyone,

This past month, I was able to advance to the district level of the Reflections Arts Competition. This competition is held by the PTSA (Parent Teacher Student Association) across the United States every year, focused on a particular theme. This year's theme is "I am Hopeful Because...".  This competition is dedicated for the arts. Students can create their own works of many genres of art including literature, photography, visual art, movie, dance, and music and submit it for the competition.

I have been participating in this competition for seven years and really enjoy creating my own art. This year, I created a literature piece, photography piece, and a music piece. I wanted to share my literature piece, "Technology for a Better Future" with you all as it was recently selected to advance to the district level of the competition.

As we enter new decades and ages, technology has been growing at an increased rate. With the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI), certain sectors and people have greatly benefited from it, one of the most prominent being the healthcare industry. My piece, “Technology for a Better Future”, talks about these prodigious effects such as doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals being able to treat their patients knowing which medicines are most effective using technologies such as AI, as well as being able to identify common symptoms to prevent the spread of diseases. AI truly has and will continue to advance our society as a whole.

Without further ado, here is "Technology for a Better Future".

In this ever-changing world of ours, new technological developments are being made each minute. Whether it’s new ways to harness clean and renewable energy, or advances in transportation, one piece of tech remains prevalent: Artificial Intelligence (AI).

 

AI is a wondrous development and shows the peak of human thinking. Imagine you have some friends coming over to your house for dinner. Everything seems to be going well but you realize you have barely anything in your fridge. In comes artificial intelligence where it can easily tell you a delicious recipe that you can make with the ingredients you have. However, this is not the limit to what AI can do. Additionally, it can create music, draw beautiful pieces of art, and even autonomously drive cars.

 

To me, the most important use of AI is its medical functions. In the medicine field, AI is not only being used widely in this moment, but it is also increasing in use. This is why I am hopeful for the future. AI in medicine has been revolutionary in terms of it helping millions of people across the world. For example, AI-enabled robots assist doctors while they are performing surgery operations, to make sure that no mistakes or harm comes to the patient. Another use that AI is being used for in the medicine field is its ability to perform medical imaging. AI isn’t just physical health though, it also includes helping with mental health in its arsenal of uses. Through chatbots and monitoring apps, programs can check on patients’ well-being and how they are feeling.

 

For many diseases, such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s, it is hard to cure people and it often takes a long time to help them recover. AI though accelerates this process by doing many tasks while medical workers can work on other urgent work. Not only is AI able to identify any abnormalities in CT scans, x-rays, and other diagnoses, but it is also able to apply cognitive learning so that it can pick out those patterns in the future from other scans. For active cancer treating, AI calculates the approximate location of the tumor and directs the radiation therapy to that precise location, sparing the healthy cells. Furthermore, machine learning programs are able to use different factors from the patient and see what they need to create a personalized treatment plan that is specific to the person. Through vast datasets of different medicines and their effectiveness, a program is able to select the medicine that will target cancer cells the best and eliminate them. In a study done by the CDC in 2020, 602,347 people died from cancer. From this revolutionary technology, people won’t have to suffer and can get treated with the required and most efficient treatment plans.

 

Whether it’s actively participating in medical examinations or aiding in the recovery of patients, these AI programs are incredibly useful to everyone. People are also supporting this integration. In a survey done of healthcare leaders in the United States (in 2021), approximately 41-45% of respondents reported using AI at a fully functional level or for healthcare data integration. This shows that professionals, after witnessing the wonder of machine learning and artificial intelligence, are using the invention for their and their patients' benefits.

With all this information, the future is clearly looking bright for medicine facilities all across the globe. With the help of AI, treating and providing care for patients will only get better. Gone is the time where doctors, nurses, and medical professionals struggle with treatment and in come the times where we as a society use our thinking to the advantage of healing others. I am hopeful for the future because of what artificial intelligence is doing for the well-being of humans.