We straddle a world of starkly different challenges: readying ourselves for the penetration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in all spheres, while still struggling to get affordable medicines and treatment as a fundamental right. The editorials in this issue deal with these disparate challenges. The authors in the Theme section on health-AI and India study its applications in real local settings and hypothetical ones, consider the massive changes of a post-AI society from philosophical perspectives, and explore how human agency and data privacy can be protected. With the virtual world taking over the real one for the vulnerable, can AI chatbots as treatment aids aggravate psychosis? Are grief bots harmless sources of comfort for the bereaved? Can these tools be harnessed without commercial interference? No more simply science fiction, these questions are confronted by our authors.
Future medical professionals will need training to cope with this futuristic scenario. Arming them with a strong sense of ethics and humanism is essential for this. The issue includes a range of viewpoints on these subjects, along with book reviews, poems and reflections.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________Cover credit: Shade for all, courtesy Poornima Sukumar.