Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Cognitive Computing: What Do These Terms Mean and How Will They Impact Health Care?

This article was presented at the 2017 annual meeting of the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons to introduce the members gathered as the audience to the concepts behind artificial intelligence (AI) and the applications that AI can have in the world of health care today. We discuss the origin of AI, progress to machine learning, and then discuss how the limits of machine learning lead data scientists to develop artificial neural networks and deep learning algorithms through biomimicry. We will place all these technologies in the context of practical clinical examples and show how AI can act as a tool to support and amplify human cognitive functions for physicians delivering care to increasingly complex patients. The aim of this article is to provide the reader with a basic understanding of the fundamentals of AI. Its purpose is to demystify this technology for practicing surgeons so they can better understand how and where to apply it.