A consortium for AI in medicine special interest group at Cambridge, led by Dr Richard Dybowski, with support from Cambridge Big Data Strategic Research Initiative.

An important aspect of computational medicine is the provision of decision support for clinicians and patients. Such support can be attempted by statistical and AI-based techniques.

There is no universally accepted definition of artificial intelligence, but an informal offering is that AI is about enabling computers to mimic (to some degree) cognitive functions including learning, reasoning and problem solving, but possibly also outperforming humans at such tasks. In contemporary AI, activities of interest include machine learning, automated inference (along with reasoning under uncertainty or imprecision), case-based reasoning, high-level computer vision, intelligent interfaces, intelligent robotics, knowledge representation, multi-agent systems, natural language processing and planning of actions.

Although various aspects of AI in medicine exist within Cambridge University, it is fragmented and spread across various departments; therefore, the creation of a web-based consortium within the University is proposed of those actively involved in this field.

Currently, the remit of the consortium will be on the theory and practice of AI in medicine, medically-oriented human biology, and health care. This includes the development of systems that support decision-based medical tasks through knowledge- and/or data-intensive computer-based solutions.

This meeting will be held a to discuss the above proposal and to give people an opportunity to share their thoughts and suggestions.