Dr. Google
Is Google the good doctor of tomorrow?
Docteur Google
Roland Moreau (Atlantico, France)
Translation: InoSMIAfter the development of Google Glass and the acquisition of the Nest thermostat creators startup, Google decided to engage in a smart contact lens that can measure blood sugar levels and thereby make life easier for diabetics.
Atlantico: Google decided to help diabetics avoid unnecessary unpleasant injections and started developing a smart lens that will measure blood sugar levels using tear analysis. The company wants their prototype to pass the certification of the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Could you tell us in more detail about the principle of operation of this smart lens? Is it reliable? Does this prototype have prospects?
Roland Moreau: We are talking about a contact lens that is placed on the cornea of the eye to measure the glucose content in tears. A miniature glucose sensor and a chip are placed between the two layers of the lens material. This new technology allows you to measure the sugar level in tears in real time. The device is supposed to accommodate means of light indication, which will give a signal to the user if certain thresholds are exceeded.
Such an interesting technique could be extremely useful for all diabetic patients. With type one diabetes, people would be able to avoid several daily injections, which are required to determine blood sugar levels and calculate the dose of insulin needed for injection. As for type 2 diabetes (it occurs most often), the new device could serve as an extremely effective preventive tool. Everyone would be able to monitor glucose levels and properly regulate their diet, physical activity and medication intake. Thus, this innovation would simultaneously improve the quality of life of insulin-dependent patients and reduce the number of patients with type II diabetes.
It should be noted that the number of diabetic patients is growing significantly. There are about three million of them in France alone, and over the past ten years this figure has doubled. The WHO is talking about a real "epidemic", whose consequences can be very serious due to the severity of potential complications (blindness, cardiovascular diseases, kidney failure ...).
That is, in theory, a contact lens from Google can bring undeniable benefits, but it is still difficult to say anything about its reliability. In particular, it will be necessary to establish a clear relationship between the glucose content in tears and human blood. This innovation will have serious prospects only after trials among a large number of people (healthy and diabetics).
– Engineers of smartphones and other high-tech products constantly talk about innovations. Nevertheless, Google Glass glasses disappointed many experienced specialists. So, maybe medicine will become the future of hi-tech?
– Medicine is really one of the directions of high–tech development, as can be seen from the example of the latest developments like artificial hearts and hands, which the brain can control using a computer connected to it.
Apparently, Google is going to take up medicine: it recently created a subsidiary Calico, which will address the issues of aging and related diseases. Although Google's sudden interest in medicine raises questions. The company's management realized that doctors and research laboratories accumulate and analyze huge amounts of information about patients, while Google's strength and wealth are based on giant databases. It is easy to imagine the consequences of the appearance of such a "big brother" in medicine. Medical secrecy will become a relic of the past, and insurance companies, pharmaceutical laboratories and employers will have access to this information, which can be purchased from Google for a lot of money.
– "High-tech medicine" at Google is headed by Raymond Kurzweil. The press calls him almost crazy! And for good reason: he believes in immortality based on artificial intelligence. According to him, in 30 years we will be able to transfer our mind to a computer and thereby gain eternal life.… But how far is Google going to go in medicine? What are his craziest projects? Is it possible to implement them in practice?
– Raymond Kurzweil is a computer science genius, but his statements raise certain concerns. He has long since joined the transhumanist movement, which was formed in the USA about 30 years ago and aims to expand all human capabilities (intelligence, physical strength, longevity ...) by any available technical means (genetics, bio- and nanotechnology, neuroscience, computer science ...). This movement enjoys the support of the American government and is completely different from the club of charlatans: it includes several Nobel Prize laureates, heads of major international companies (including Google) and thousands of teachers and researchers. The recent appearance of Raymond Kurzweil in the leadership of Google is by no means an accident, and his project looks quite frightening. It consists in transferring the information content of the human brain to a digital medium. Moreover, it will not just be memory, but a set of programs that will ensure the performance of all brain functions (intelligence, feelings ...). All this will be enclosed in a kind of physical storage until a sympathetic (or malicious) person turns off the current.
This initiative goes much further than artificial intelligence and mathematical models of the brain, such as those currently being developed at the Polytechnic School of Lausanne. We are talking about the transfer of human consciousness into a kind of material carrier: disembodied immortality. Fortunately, this project is completely unworkable given the current level of theoretical knowledge. Nevertheless, science is becoming more and more aware, and it is impossible to say how everything will be in a few centuries.
At the same time, projects within the framework of so-called regenerative medicine and the use of molecules that restore the damage caused to the body from aging, in theory, can become the key to a significant increase in life expectancy (up to 150-200 years) in the relatively foreseeable future, perhaps in a few decades.
– How should Google's initiatives be evaluated? Is he trying to bring new technologies to medicine or, on the contrary, wants to take an even bigger place in our lives in order to monitor us more effectively ... or even control us?
– As for Google, it's not specific projects that cause concern, but long-term initiatives. Pinpoint technical innovations like lenses for diabetics and a driverless car can only benefit, because if implemented, they will prevent tens of millions of deaths and injuries due to accidents and diabetes. These are quite reasonable and extremely effective projects from the point of view of healthcare.
Nevertheless, in large-scale projects that give off the desire for omnipotence, such as collecting and processing medical data from around the world or transferring human consciousness to a computer, Google becomes both "big brother" and Frankenstein!
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru21.01.2014