Dose of uncertainty: experts wary of AI health tech gadgets on display at CES trade show

Health tech gadgets displayed at the annual CES trade show make a lot of promises. A smart scale promoted a healthier lifestyle by scanning your feet to track your heart health, and an egg-shaped hormone tracker uses artificial intelligence to help you figure out the best time to conceive.\nTechnology and health experts, however, question the accuracy of products like these and warn of data privacy issues – especially as the US federal government eases up on regulation.\nThe US Food and Drug Administration announced during the annual show in Las Vegas that it will relax regulations on “low-risk” general wellness products such as heart monitors and wheelchairs.\nThat would mark the latest step President Donald Trump’s administration has taken to remove barriers for AI innovation and use. The White House repealed former President Joe Biden’s executive order establishing guardrails around AI, and last month, the US Department of Health and Human Services outlined its strategy to expand the use of AI.\nBooths at the conference showcased new technology designed to help people living in rural areas with their healthcare needs amid doctor shortages, boost research into women’s health and make life easier for people with disabilities.\nAI technologies have benefits in the over US$4.3 trillion healthcare industry, according to Marschall Runge, professor of medical science at the University of Michigan. He said they are good at analysing medical imaging and can help streamline doctors’ busy schedules, but they can also promote biases and “hallucinate”, providing incorrect information stated as fact.\n“I would urge people not to think that the technology is the same as a well-resourced, thoughtful, research-driven medical professional,” said Cindy Cohn, executive director of the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation.\nPrivacy protections, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, do not cover information collected by consumer devices, and the companies could be using the data to train their AI models or selling it to other businesses, Cohn said.\n\nWith a lot of the gadgets at CES, Cohn said it was difficult to find out where your information was going.\n“You have to dig down through the fine print to try to figure that out, and I just don’t think that’s fair or right for the people who might rely on it,” she said.\nBut the creators of the products say their innovations fill in healthcare gaps and they maintain they protect their customers’ privacy.\nSylvia Kang, the founder and CEO of Mira, said she created the egg-shaped hormone tracker because many of her friends were trying to conceive and realised they had no knowledge of their hormonal health.\nTo use the “world’s mini hormone lab”, you dip a wand in urine, insert the wand into the monitor and look at the results on the app.\nKang said her company uses AI to analyse female hormone data and has one of the world’s biggest hormonal health banks. The data is stored on the cloud and is not shared with anyone, Kang said.\n“There was no such thing before,” Kang said of her US$250 product.\n\nMany gadgets at CES focused on women’s health, which has been historically under-researched and underfunded. Before 1993, women were excluded from clinical trials, and there was still little research on areas like menopause.\nWhile not every woman will have a baby, all women go through menopause, and “yet we know nothing about it”, said Amy Divaraniya, founder and CEO of the women’s health company Oova, during a session at CES.\nOne gadget called Peri aims to better understand perimenopause – the transitional phase before menopause. The wearable device monitors hot flushes and night sweats and provides the data via an app.\nOther products at CES were promoted as a way to increase accessibility to health information.\n\nThe free medicine-focused AI chatbot called 0xmd was touted to help improve access to medical information in areas with doctor shortages and provided a cost-effective alternative, according to its founder and architect, Allen Au.\nPeople can ask the chatbot questions about medicine, upload photos of a mole or rash, and submit their doctors’ notes for an easier-to-understand translation, Au said.\n“At the end of the day, I don’t think we will replace doctors”, but it can give people a second opinion, he added.\nOpenAI announced on Wednesday its launch of ChatGPT Health, a similar platform.\nElectronic Frontier Foundation’s Cohn, however, remained sceptical of consumer tech. She said they could help prepare people to ask the right questions of their medical professional, but they were not going to be a substitute for a doctor.\n“People need to remember that these are just tools; they’re not oracles who are delivering truths,” she said.\n