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Today, one’s own health has established itself as an important value. We collect

more and more information about our bodies – a veritable health cult has emerged.

One indispensable gadget is the Smart Assistant with artificial intelligence (AI).

We futurologists show opportunities and risks in dealing with AI and how we can preserve our sovereignty and freedom with the help of our values.

Focus on your own health

Being healthy today is perceived as a sense of achievement. The new health culture

has been established since the mid-1950s, following a steady increase in diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. In addition to the gradual rejection of bad habits such as smoking or junk food, numerous articles on healthy eating or relaxation exercises – analog and digital – demonstrate the ever-increasing importance of a healthy lifestyle. The trend is supported by almost unlimited, easily understandable, medical knowledge available on the Internet. What is new is a collective mainstream in search of individual satisfaction: Fitness centers instead of sports clubs.

Get into balance with the Smart Assistant

Fitness has a comprehensive effect. But how do we know how we’re doing at all times? Think of of the smartphone that uses facial recognition to deduce how you are feeling and suggests what you can do to improve your well-being? For the use of artificial Intelligence in cardiology and for the examination of metabolic functions is in fact, especially – but not only – in China. Outside of complex diagnoses and surgical interventions, this opens up the prospect of a largely individualized health management in dialog with the Smart Assistant,

which calls in authorized physicians as needed.

… and the family doctor?

The general practitioner will not disappear – also because the assistant points out where the limits of self-medication and where professional support is indicated. However, in everyday life, the Smart Assistant can be a welcome helper: Thanks to its evaluation of data about our eating habits and exercise behavior, it can make suggestions for a healthy and creative diet. In combination with our physiological data, it also informs us about the risks of unhealthy

meals, such as those with too much fat and/or salt.

Fear of manipulation: What prospects does futurology open up?

A beautiful, healthy world? Futurology uses scenarios to examine the opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence. and risks of artificial intelligence, taking our fears into account,

but also our hopes for a self-determined life. On the one hand, there is the danger of abusing power, which is tempted by a large information advantage and AI programs that have become intransparent. On the other hand, too strict legal regulations lead to a loss of personal freedom. What is realistic and desirable between the extremes – that is what we futurologists try to achieve by reflecting on our values.