Tools Behind Paywall
Summary
The advancement of Artificial Intelligence has certainly benefited a whole array of industries; students gain a new peer in academia, and employers gain a new assistant. Yet, its benefits are not shared equally among stakeholders. In the medical industry, some doctors have gradually assimilated AI for email drafts and workflows. However, some are unwilling to pay for them due to their costs. According to Channel News Asia, the chief medical officer of Assure Family Clinic in Bukit Merah, Dr Joanne Koay, spends up to S$ 2,200 annually on a Ministry of Health-approved AI platform that supports health screenings, genomics-based wellness assessments, and early cancer detection. If these fees continue to rise as AI capabilities improve, the cost of AI will naturally trickle down to patients, further increasing the ballooning cost of medical care in Singapore. The cost is particularly glaring for small clinics. The efficiency of AI certainly helps bigger clinics with high patient loads. But smaller clinics do not need transcription tools when their patient documentation is easily handled by humans, according to Dr Roland Xu of Procare GP Clinic in Ang Mo Kio.
Application
As we can see, it is necessary for developers and engineers to put a price tag on AI; without the financial incentives, no firm will want to innovate and solve society's problems. Yet when the price exceeds a threshold of tolerance, the impact of these sophisticated tools diminishes, extending their reach only to those who can truly afford them.