Your next artificially intelligent (AI) doctor will see you now please - I for one look forward to the time I get to hear this. I have been seeing various articles recently regarding the progress of AI. In this specific instance, AI in regards to the field of medicine. Its coming. It is just a matter of time.
With "big data" (more then we humans can now adequately process) and the constant improvement of artificial Intelligence (AI), it is only a matter of time before our doctors become AI machines, or perhaps, AI and human doctors working together with humans providing the face time.
There are some who would balk at this idea, especially what some would consider the older generation. However, if one can manage to put aside their fear of what is different and fear of the unknown and actually look at the data, one could see the improvements and accuracy AI has compared to their human counterparts in multiple fields now, one of which is diagnosing disease.
While AI is not 100% foolproof and it still needs work, over time, AI has shown to continue to best humans in many of the tasks it is given to do, often by a significant and insurmountable margin. Given enough time and enough data, the fields that AI bests humans in will continue to expand.
With those things said, even now, AI is shown to best humans in diagnosing disease (such as tumors, heart disease and other ailments) both in being more accurate then humans in diagnosing specific disease and in diagnosing the disease much faster.
People already use technology instead of their human doctor now to a degree. They use Google and other electronic means now to diagnose themselves and their ailments separate from their human doctor. There is inherent danger in doing this as there is misleading information (either deliberately or unintentionally) on the internet. Also, because disease symptoms of totally separate diseases often overlap to a degree, there is also the danger of going down the rabbit hole of psychosomatic cyberchondria.
While humans are still good at diagnosing things, they are human and not infallible, they make mistakes. Machines have already surpassed humans in both accuracy and diagnosing specific disease much faster. In the realm of medicine where health, suffering and/or life could be on the line, I am confident that most, even those who are now opposed, would choose to listen to the diagnosis of Doctor B, who has a diagnostic accuracy of 95% then Doctor A, who has a diagnostic accuracy of 71.3%, even if doctor B was shown to be a machine and Doctor A was shown to be a human.
To start chemotherapy and undergo surgeries or other significant procedures are big decisions. Wouldn't you want the most accurate diagnosis before undergoing these things when weighing your decision to undergo them with the most accurate diagnosis, regardless of it is a machine or a human?
I am curious to hear people's thoughts on this after reading this OP in full and the two linked articles.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyol.../#2c67337412c0
https://futurism.com/ai-medicine-doctor/
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