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Is your dentist upselling you on something? Does your old filling really need to be replaced, and is that tooth decay really bad enough to warrant new work?<\/p>\n
Such suspicions have probably crossed your mind before as you laid there in tense anticipation of the noisy drill about to send stomach-churning vibrations through your teeth, and they\u2019re not going to go away once you hear about how dentists across the country are embracing AI tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In her new book \u201cI Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything,\u201d former Wall Street Journal columnist Joanna Stern recalls how a routine trip to the dentist\u2019s office led her to unearthing the disturbing way that AI is being used to push unnecessary treatments.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimilarly to how AI is being used in radiology for breasts or gallbladder, et cetera, it\u2019s being used in dentistry. And honestly, it\u2019s happening almost everywhere,\u201d Stern said on the latest episode of The New York Time\u2019s \u201cHard Fork\u201d podcast<\/a> discussing her book.<\/p>\n When Stern visited a dentist on her own time, she realized the office used a system called Pearl AI, which promises on its website to catch \u201c37 percent more disease and deliver 24 percent more care to patients in need.\u201d <\/p>\n The tool showed she had a lot of plaque build-up, and the dentist used its finding to give an assessment that was ominous for both her health and wallet: Stern would need periodontal treatment, which would take four different sessions and cost thousands of dollars. That it\u2019d be covered by insurance wasn\u2019t guaranteed.<\/p>\n To Stern, this was \u201cweird.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never needed this before,\u201d she said. \u201cMy teeth aren\u2019t really bothering me.\u201d<\/p>\n Wisely, she decided to get some outside opinions from multiple other dentists, all of whom disagreed with the AI\u2019s analysis.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018We see the AI is saying that. But we\u2019re looking, and it\u2019s really not that bad. We think, with some better home care, it can be better,’\u201d Stern said, paraphrasing the dentists. \u201cAnd lo and behold, I never had the periodontal treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n That led Stern to do some digging. In her reporting, employees who worked in dentists\u2019 offices told her that their bosses were heavily pushing AI \u201cbecause they can now see the readings\u201d in an AI report. If they didn\u2019t capitalize on the AI\u2019s findings, their bosses would grill them. \u201c\u2018Why didn\u2019t you drill it? Why didn\u2019t you sell the periodontal treatment?’\u201d their bosses would say.<\/p>\n The upshot is grim.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are using AI to try to upsell you on dental procedures,\u201d Stern said.<\/p>\n Tools like Pearl AI and Overjet, another popular staple in dentist offices, are just one facet of how AI is being used in medical practices. One of the areas that AI has shown the most promise in assisting doctors is in radiology, with a New York hospital CEO recently enthusing<\/a> that the tech could help cut down on the number of highly trained radiologists.\u00a0<\/p>\n But as Stern opines, with radiology, a doctor using AI could potentially be detecting the early warning signs of something grave like breast cancer, justifying its use, even if the cancer isn\u2019t guaranteed. The upside of having an AI identify something like a cavity before it manifests is decidedly less impressive and life-changing \u2014 and more likely to scare you into putting an unnecessary dent in your wallet.<\/p>\n