Fear and Intelligence: The Human Element in Medical Research and AI

Transcript generated by AI.

Announcer: 0:00

Welcome to the MedEvidence Monday Minute Radio Show hosted by Kevin Geddngs of WSOS St. Augustine Radio and powered by ENCORE Research Group. Each Monday morning, Dr. Michael Koren calls in to bring you the latest medical updates with insightful discussions. MedEvidence is where we help you navigate the real truth behind medical research, with both a clinical and research perspective. So sit back, relax and get ready to learn about the truth behind the data in medicine and healthcare. This is MedEvidence.

Kevin Geddings: 0:31

Dr. Michael Koren is with us, of course. We appreciate him taking time out of his busy schedule on Monday mornings and he, of course, is a medical doctor. Research scientist, cardiologist heads up the show at ENCORE Research Group  where they are conducting leading-edge medical clinical research. Dr. Koren's been driving around Northeast Florida this morning thinking about artificial intelligence. Huh.

Dr. Michael Koren: 0:52

Yeah, I had a revelation over the weekend, Kevin, with regard to the concept of fear and artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence and people have been hyping AI and I've had this just deep-set feeling that there's something about it that just doesn't work, that won't really be as successful as everybody thinks in its current iteration. And what it comes down to, I believe, is that artificial intelligence doesn't have fear and human intelligence does have fear. So that may sound a little bit weird, but let me play it out a little bit for you.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:29

So really, in the very primitive parts of our brain we call that the limbic system, we have this filter of fear, and humans had never evolved without this fear.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:41

Just imagine if we didn't have fear and we went into caves without trying to figure out what was inside of those caves, we would have been slaughtered as a race before we even got started.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:52

So very deep in our psyche is this concept of fear, and I would argue that a lot of human culture is based on this fear and overcoming fear. So when we talk to somebody, we always have this little sense of fear and a filter of fear. We don't want to say anything that would aggravate that person or make them do something differently than how we want to influence them, or we're trying to overcome fear, showing our courageousness. So you go back to high school. Smoking cigarettes when you're in high school is a way for a teenager to show that they're overcoming this fear, they're being brave and unfortunately, some of them get addicted to it along the way. But the point being is that fear drives us. It's an important part of human intelligence and without it humans would not survive and they would not prosper, and artificial intelligence just doesn't have that.

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:45

So in all the interactions.

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:47

They never have that fear filter, which will inevitably result in bad advice and actually get people into trouble.

Kevin Geddings: 2:55

Yeah, makes sense. Kind of makes you think too. The old FDR quote right, the one about fear. All we have to fear is fear itself, but we want to engage fear right.

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:05

Exactly.

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:06

A lot of brilliant people have thought about this and they realize that courage isn't the absence of fear, but it's overcoming the fears that we all have, and so it's really an interesting part of the human psyche and making the transition to what I do day-to-day in clinical research. I think it's also relevant because some people are a little uncomfortable with the idea of clinical research because of the fear of the unknown. But once that fear is cleared up, then they become really big supporters, and I've quoted this statistic to more than once, which is that only 40% of people who have never touched a clinical trial are strongly supportive of it or really want to be in it. But once you've done a clinical trial, 97% to 99% of people say they would do it again, and part of the reason for that is there's a natural fear of doing something you haven't done before, and there's a natural fear of doing something in medicine that may not be something you completely understand.

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:04

But the clinical trial process is such a beautiful process because we walk you through it very carefully. We walk you through it safely, with intelligence. At the end of the day, people derive an incredible amount of learning and overcome their fears.

Kevin Geddings: 4:19

I know from just participating in clinical trials with ENCORE Research Group what kind of makes you go through. I don't know if it's fear. Well, fear, some fear, some anxiety is you know, being told what's going to happen. You know lots of communication, lots of information about what's happening. What's the goal here, what's going to be the follow-up process. However, you know how you're going to be tracked in terms of your healthcare during the time that you're participating. So it's almost like more information, more communication, helps us alleviate our fears, right.

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:48

Exactly, exactly. And that fear is just a natural filter. So sometimes people use that word filter, but really it's a fear of saying or doing something that can have negative consequences, and it really is a key part of virtually every human interaction, which AI doesn't have, and fortunately we have a mechanism, through scientific research, to help people overcome that concept Speaking of fear, a lot of times fear leads us to go to Dr. Google and try to get some information about you.

Kevin Geddings: 5:19

Know what's that rash I've got? But a better source of information is medevidence. com. Correct.

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:26

Yeah, well, thank you for bringing that up, and it's a great example of this revelation that I had, which is, if you go to Google or chat GPT, you'll just get a computer pulling something off of the web without fear that they may be wrong or that fear that they may not be addressing the person that would benefit from a different spin or a different context, but when you watch medevidence videos or see so far presentations. All that is explained. So we always talk about the fact that advice is only as good as the audience, so every audience needs a different piece of advice.

Dr. Michael Koren: 6:02

The advice should be tailored based on who's listening and we try to help people understand that and give people an understanding where they can take that understanding and then give themselves their own advice based on being's listening. And we try to help people understand that and give people an understanding where they can take that understanding and then give themselves their own advice based on being more knowledgeable and have really a thoughtful understanding of what the pluses and minuses are in every circumstance.

Dr. Michael Koren: 6:20

Again how we like to express that is that there's things we know for sure, there's things we really don't know at all, and there's a process to learn about the stuff that we don't know.

Kevin Geddings: 6:33

And MedEvidence helps you understand all that. Yeah, medevidence presents the information really in an easily digestible way. If you will, I encourage you to check out the website, share it with friends and family, those who are always going online looking for healthcare information. You should really start with MedEvidence. Go to MedEvidence. com. Medevidence. com the truth behind the data. And if you'd like to participate or consider participating in clinical research here in St. John's County and St.Augustine, go to encoredocs.com. That's encoredocs.com, Dr. Michael Koren. Thank you very much for your time this morning. Drive safe out there, okay,

Dr. Michael Koren: 7:02

appreciate it, Kevin. Have a great week.

Announcer: 7:04

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