Mustafa

Tackling health problems is clearly a commendable activity, but unfortunately the benefits of traditional medical research are not always well distributed. Some people will be worried that this may also happen with the new data driven diagnostics you are creating.

You have explained that patients’ data will not be linked to Google’s emporium, and that’s all very well. What is less clear is what happens with the insights you generate from patients’ data created with publicly funded infrastructure. Will eye hospitals in poor — or rich — countries have to pay Alphabet Inc a licence for computerised imaging diagnostics? Google’s notoriously progressive approach to access to knowledge does not generally extend to its own algorithms.

Part of the concern many people will have with Google Deep Mind’s foray into the health sector stems from the lack of clarity about your business model. The time when technology companies could come bearing gifts with some general rhetoric of universal benefit to humankind has fortunately passed. Google has spent at least half a billion dollars on your unit according to reports, and we can only expect they plan to recover some of that money, one day, somehow.

A clear commitment to openness and transparency, and not to try to enforce any IP restrictions on the algorithms and insights generated from research that benefits from publicly funded data, would be welcome.