Open Access
Yearb Med Inform 2012; 21(01): 153-162
DOI: 10.1055/s-0038-1639447
History of Medical Informatics
Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart

The Development of AI in Medicine and the Research Environment of the SPHINX Project at the Start of the 1980s

M. Fieschi
1   LERTIM - Faculté de Médecine de Marseille, Aix-Marseille University, France
› Author Affiliations
Further Information

Publication History

Publication Date:
10 March 2018 (online)

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Summary

Objectives

To review the history of AI in Medicine in the 1980’s, placing the SPHINX system in the context of other research in this field.

Methods

Summarize the main systems for AI in medicine devel- oped in the 1970-1980 decade and their relationship to the de- velopment of clinical decision-making and consultation systems.

Results

The approaches taken by AI in medicine research groups is compared and contrasted to those of others using statistical and logical methods for representing clinical inferences, and the different AI approaches are summarized, and related to the archi- tecture and systems implementation of SPHINX.

Conclusion

The SPHINX system combined a number of advanced representational and inference choices from AI in designing a de- cision-support system for clinical consultation in the 1980s. The context within which the system was developed is outlined and related to the historical evolution of AI in medicine during that decade.