Want to see AI help cure the world? Convince more people to share their health data

Healthcare AI isn’t yet good enough to reliably deliver on its promises where it stands to make the biggest difference—and it doesn’t have enough high-quality data to get there anytime soon.

The promises getting called into question include speeding up drug development, personalizing medicine based on genomes and making basic diagnoses in regions of the world that lack doctors. Those doing the questioning include Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist of the World Health Organization.

“Health data is a public good, but people have to trust the WHO and governments that it won’t be used for commercial reasons without their consent or to discriminate against people,” Swaminathan...