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Indeed, I do not think either that doctors need to worry much. AI will change our jobs for the better, that is pretty sure. Maybe we will earn a little less, bu

by rscho 10y ago

Indeed, I do not think either that doctors need to worry much. AI will change our jobs for the better, that is pretty sure. Maybe we will earn a little less, but what of it?! Putting us out of work would mean handling the huge amount of technical details involved in our daily jobs. People (and HN is no exception to that) really, really underestimate that. The biggest problem is the amount of rigorous feedback you need to train an efficient system. The medical system is a long, long way from having such information retrieval capabilities. And then you have the physical procedures... Robots are also still have a long way to go on that one!

austinjp 10y ago
Unsurprisingly perhaps I'm not so sure. Could you elaborate on the processes you allude to? I'd be very interested. A pathologist I know attends cancer surgeries and analyses biopsies while the surgeon waits to make a decision. Very little process there, but a fair amount of time and hence cost and risk. A robot here might improve outcomes and costs, and seems reasonably realistic. And the surgeon is not immune from the threat to jobs posed by robots. Another role I can imagine in pathology might be for a human to randomly spot-check diagnoses made by image analysis. That would become comparatively very mundane and potentially low paid. And since humans tend to perform worse than AI in some image analysis tasks, I can envisage a time where the robots are trusted 100% and the humans are seen as anachronistic. In summary, I guess, complex processes might not protect jobs, but make them a clear target for efficiency improvements.
- rscho 10y ago
  I am not saying medicine entails complex processes in terms of intellectual capabilities. Quite the opposite, actually. The complexity I was speaking about is that of actual physical procedures. Most specialties span a much larger range of activities than one imagines at first glance. For example, pathology does involve looking at surgical samples under the microscope, but that is only the final step in the process. You first have to describe the specimen macroscopically, and make sense of its original location and orientation in the body. Autopsy, a process akin to surgery, also falls in the realm of pathology. Granted, some specialties will be easier than others to automate. But the complexity of the machine feedback processes that will have to be implemented are currently overwhelming in most specialties. We will see a long period during which AI facilitates our work, without replacing us, due to lack of integration in the workplace. You mentioned surgery as difficult for AI, but interestingly it is one of the fields where feedback will be easier to implement, since patients rarely undergo surgery without extensive imaging first. But in many technical procedures (anesthesia, intubation, catheterization, bronchoscopy, etc...) you often perform without fixed patterns, and orient yourself using the (quite variable) patient environment and symptoms. There is no question this all will be automated someday. But it is far more complex than working on a car assembly line. We are not there yet.
  - austinjp 10y ago
    Thanks for the reply. I didn't known that autopsy was a pathology discipline. Personally I suspect that many medical roles will be broken into sub-roles and semi automated. Humans will remain with stop/go decisions and overview, for a while at least. I think we are probably in agreement. Incidentally, I agree regarding surgery, perhaps I was unclear.
b_emery 10y ago
Indeed, I spoke with a pathologist friend about this. Non-experts assume its black and white (cancer or not) but there are many many shades of grey and other variables. Its very complex.

by rscho 10y ago

austinjp 10y ago

Unsurprisingly perhaps I'm not so sure. Could you elaborate on the processes you allude to? I'd be very interested. A pathologist I know attends cancer surgeries and analyses biopsies while the surgeon waits to make a decision. Very little process there, but a fair amount of time and hence cost and risk. A robot here might improve outcomes and costs, and seems reasonably realistic. And the surgeon is not immune from the threat to jobs posed by robots. Another role I can imagine in pathology might be for a human to randomly spot-check diagnoses made by image analysis. That would become comparatively very mundane and potentially low paid. And since humans tend to perform worse than AI in some image analysis tasks, I can envisage a time where the robots are trusted 100% and the humans are seen as anachronistic. In summary, I guess, complex processes might not protect jobs, but make them a clear target for efficiency improvements.

rscho 10y ago
I am not saying medicine entails complex processes in terms of intellectual capabilities. Quite the opposite, actually. The complexity I was speaking about is that of actual physical procedures. Most specialties span a much larger range of activities than one imagines at first glance. For example, pathology does involve looking at surgical samples under the microscope, but that is only the final step in the process. You first have to describe the specimen macroscopically, and make sense of its original location and orientation in the body. Autopsy, a process akin to surgery, also falls in the realm of pathology. Granted, some specialties will be easier than others to automate. But the complexity of the machine feedback processes that will have to be implemented are currently overwhelming in most specialties. We will see a long period during which AI facilitates our work, without replacing us, due to lack of integration in the workplace. You mentioned surgery as difficult for AI, but interestingly it is one of the fields where feedback will be easier to implement, since patients rarely undergo surgery without extensive imaging first. But in many technical procedures (anesthesia, intubation, catheterization, bronchoscopy, etc...) you often perform without fixed patterns, and orient yourself using the (quite variable) patient environment and symptoms. There is no question this all will be automated someday. But it is far more complex than working on a car assembly line. We are not there yet.
- austinjp 10y ago
  Thanks for the reply. I didn't known that autopsy was a pathology discipline. Personally I suspect that many medical roles will be broken into sub-roles and semi automated. Humans will remain with stop/go decisions and overview, for a while at least. I think we are probably in agreement. Incidentally, I agree regarding surgery, perhaps I was unclear.

b_emery 10y ago

Indeed, I spoke with a pathologist friend about this. Non-experts assume its black and white (cancer or not) but there are many many shades of grey and other variables. Its very complex.