Why do experts think that artificial intelligence will be able to help identify the people who are at a greater risk for Alzheimer’s?

AI has been around for a very long time. The granddaddies of this field proposed these algorithms that we’re using now almost 40–45 years ago and at the time, they were kind of laughed out of computer science because people thought it would never work on a larger scale. The theory and the backbone has been there for a long time. The proof is in the pudding in a lot of ways, like with self-driving cars, Netflix, Facebook — they’ve all shown that AI can do a good job of predicting behaviors and preferences for individuals. There is proof and it’s very strong from different digital domains. In cancer research, AI is starting to make significant inroads because it’s one of the biomedical fields where we’ve done a much better job in terms of precision medicine. In metabolic disorders, it’s starting to happen too. I think one of the main differences between those diseases and the brain is that we know a lot more about those disorders than we do about normative brain functioning and brain disorders. As those two things come together, it will help the algorithms make better predictions.