Science & Technology

It’s time to find out.

US Presidents are known to dream big. It was John F. Kennedy who set America on a course to reach the moon. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan was laughed at when he first mentioned a Strategic Defense Initiative. The American press called it “Star Wars” and mocked the idea. One day after his inauguration, President Donald Trump set the nation on a new project named Stargate – an artificial intelligence infrastructure that will “create hundreds of thousands of American jobs and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world,” according to OpenAI.com. But, best of all, it might eventually lead to a vaccine to prevent cancer.

How would artificial intelligence (AI) affect the ongoing battle against cancer? In the January issue of the Digital Journal, former pharmacist now entrepreneur Max Votek predicted: “With AI’s help, it’s now possible to predict cancer development up to five years in advance.”

According to the Cancer Research Institute (CRI), AI has already made “massive waves across many sectors,” which means that it can:

• Process irrationally large amounts of data
• Identify patterns
• Make predictions
• Perform analysis

This type of information helps in the prevention and early detection of cancer cells, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer.

Stargate: A Work in Progress

Over 600 thousand people living in the US died from one form of cancer or another last year, according to Popular Science magazine. They tell us that “AI is being used in every stage of cancer research,” including “prediction, detection, drug discovery, treatment and implementation.” But this new technology is not without its problems.

Research powered by AI and published in JAMA Pediatrics in 2024 showed that ChatGPT incorrectly diagnosed 80% – or 8 in 10 – childhood cases. Improving AI’s ability to diagnose cancer accurately probably just requires more time spent training the software. Another program though was able to predict “the disease-specific survival of a patient 75% of the time. In contrast, standard predictions based on a person’s cancer stage and other clinical risk factors were correct 64% of the time,” according to SciTechDaily. It was also able to predict melanoma 83% of the time.

Cancer Drugs & Vaccines

New treatments and vaccines could be the most promising element in the fight against cancer. Prediction and diagnosis can only take one so far – what’s needed are available treatments and cures, but those working in the AI medical field are optimistic.

1. Researchers are using artificial intelligence to diagnose cancer. The hope is that eventually this new technology will get better at accurately diagnosing cancer and even help develop treatments and vaccines.
2. Right now, AI is delivering mixed results. ChatGPT got its diagnoses wrong in 80% of childhood cancer cases, but another method as a much higher success rate, and it’s likely that they’ll all get better with more time and information.
3. Donald Trump initiated a massive AI infrastructure program called Stargate, which includes this artificial intelligence cancer research.