6 ms·

I was thinking how things like this could revolutionize healthcare by reducing the need for doctors, who we never have enough of. But you know the saying, AI is

by Tycho 8y ago

I was thinking how things like this could revolutionize healthcare by reducing the need for doctors, who we never have enough of. But you know the saying, AI is always the thing we can't do yet? Meaning the goalposts shift, and stuff that was previously considered a goal of AI research is now just boring automation, and so AI is still a distant dream. Well it occurs to me that there is something similar with healthcare: healthcare is whatever is still expensive to provide. Regardless of how many life-saving treatments and inventions are adopted, there will still be some things that only hospital/clinic staff can help you with. And so we will always have the same bottleneck and people will always complain about access to healthcare, using this bottleneck as their barometer.

frio 8y ago
I don't think we're ever going to end up replacing doctors, but in the same way that tech accelerates other industries, AI should accelerate healthcare. Tying "expert machine" to "machine learning" could massively improve the pace at which Emergency Departments can triage patients, for instance, or provide doctors another useful input tool when diagnosing tricky conditions.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  Perhaps replacing some of the low-end GPs who essentially just walk through a decision tree.
  - throwaway5752 8y ago
    We could make an AI to do the hellish coding and insurer reimbursement interactions, to free them up to do medicine. Most "low-end GPs" are still extremely impressive intellects.
glenstein 8y ago
>and stuff that was previously considered a goal of AI research is now just boring automation, and so AI is still a distant dream. I think that's exactly right, which is what makes it particularly amusing to look back at Hubert Dreyfuses' apocalyptic declarations that computers can't do things that resemble human-like judgment. One of those things was supposedly chess, which required "insight", which computers can't have. But once computers got better at it than humans, everyone kind of forgot about it and pointed at new examples.
- inopinatus 8y ago
  I suspect we will only be satisfied when AIs play each other at an incomprehensible game of their own devising.
  - allthenews 8y ago
    Similar things have happened. Two independent neural nets "spontaneously" developed their own communication protocol in an experiment. I'll see if I can find a link.
    - Tycho 8y ago
      As usual, NY Post has the best headline https://nypost.com/2017/08/01/creepy-facebook-bots-talked-to-each-other-in-a-secret-language/ https://nypost.com/2017/08/01/creepy-facebook-bots-talked-to...
acapitalistist 8y ago
And that is a key tenant of capitalism. Cost of labor is what drives the true value of money. It is also why computers will never take all our jobs and a universal basic income doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t just healthcare, it’s everything.
- hsienmaneja 8y ago
  Tenet
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Waterluvian 8y ago
The beauty of AI in medical screening is that unlike driving, 90% accurate is still a valuable tool. Imagine if your toilet said, "uh hey so your X levels seem unusual. This might be nothing but you should seek a doctor"
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  And if it was massively affordable, portable, etc. (On a lighter note I just can't help but think of a few scenes from a particular movie when we approach new automation fields... "This one goes in your mouth, this one goes in your ear, this one goes in your butt. No wait...")
  - sandebert 8y ago
    (That would be Idiocracy, a movie by Mike Judge from 2006. I enjoyed it quite a bit, go see it if you get the chance. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/)
    - 52-6F-62 8y ago
      I know I know. I've seen it too many times already. I was just trying to be coy. But I second your motion to anybody who hasn't seen it.
- danenania 8y ago
  The problem here is that due to the base rate fallacy, accuracy percentages for medical tests are widely misinterpreted, so a "90% accurate" disease-screening toilet is a recipe for lots of unnecessary procedures and emotional trauma. Even at 99%, a positive hit for most diseases is still probably a false positive.
  - stickfigure 8y ago
    That seems... ok? It might even be a good thing. With enough regular feedback, we might emotionally adjust to the realization that "maybe you should get checked out" is not OMG I'm going to die.
adrianmonk 8y ago
Humans, oddly enough, have a pretty insatiable appetite for not dying. You can build someone a 10 bedroom mansion and then offer to give them a 20 bedroom mansion instead, and they might say, "Thanks, but 10 bedrooms is quite enough." But people generally won't say no if you can offer them a longer lifespan and/or an increase in quality of life. Incidentally, if retirement age is fixed, increases in longevity lead to a higher proportion of society that is only consuming but not producing. Unless you want a decrease in standard of living, you have to compensate somehow, be it increases in efficiency, rapid population growth, or raising the retirement age. If you raise the retirement age, then medicine needs to help make sure most people are not only alive but can also actually be fit to work at age 70-80.
- gepi79 8y ago
  The strategy of longevity is to stay young. You do not live longer if you become older in a biological sense. https://youtu.be/Q2Z9pxGwxEY?t=214 https://youtu.be/Q2Z9pxGwxEY?t=214

by Tycho 8y ago

frio 8y ago

I don't think we're ever going to end up replacing doctors, but in the same way that tech accelerates other industries, AI should accelerate healthcare. Tying "expert machine" to "machine learning" could massively improve the pace at which Emergency Departments can triage patients, for instance, or provide doctors another useful input tool when diagnosing tricky conditions.

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
Perhaps replacing some of the low-end GPs who essentially just walk through a decision tree.
- throwaway5752 8y ago
  We could make an AI to do the hellish coding and insurer reimbursement interactions, to free them up to do medicine. Most "low-end GPs" are still extremely impressive intellects.

glenstein 8y ago

>and stuff that was previously considered a goal of AI research is now just boring automation, and so AI is still a distant dream. I think that's exactly right, which is what makes it particularly amusing to look back at Hubert Dreyfuses' apocalyptic declarations that computers can't do things that resemble human-like judgment. One of those things was supposedly chess, which required "insight", which computers can't have. But once computers got better at it than humans, everyone kind of forgot about it and pointed at new examples.

inopinatus 8y ago
I suspect we will only be satisfied when AIs play each other at an incomprehensible game of their own devising.
- allthenews 8y ago
  Similar things have happened. Two independent neural nets "spontaneously" developed their own communication protocol in an experiment. I'll see if I can find a link.
  - Tycho 8y ago
    As usual, NY Post has the best headline https://nypost.com/2017/08/01/creepy-facebook-bots-talked-to-each-other-in-a-secret-language/ https://nypost.com/2017/08/01/creepy-facebook-bots-talked-to...

acapitalistist 8y ago

And that is a key tenant of capitalism. Cost of labor is what drives the true value of money. It is also why computers will never take all our jobs and a universal basic income doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t just healthcare, it’s everything.

hsienmaneja 8y ago
Tenet

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Waterluvian 8y ago

The beauty of AI in medical screening is that unlike driving, 90% accurate is still a valuable tool. Imagine if your toilet said, "uh hey so your X levels seem unusual. This might be nothing but you should seek a doctor"

52-6F-62 8y ago
And if it was massively affordable, portable, etc. (On a lighter note I just can't help but think of a few scenes from a particular movie when we approach new automation fields... "This one goes in your mouth, this one goes in your ear, this one goes in your butt. No wait...")
- sandebert 8y ago
  (That would be Idiocracy, a movie by Mike Judge from 2006. I enjoyed it quite a bit, go see it if you get the chance. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/)
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    I know I know. I've seen it too many times already. I was just trying to be coy. But I second your motion to anybody who hasn't seen it.
danenania 8y ago
The problem here is that due to the base rate fallacy, accuracy percentages for medical tests are widely misinterpreted, so a "90% accurate" disease-screening toilet is a recipe for lots of unnecessary procedures and emotional trauma. Even at 99%, a positive hit for most diseases is still probably a false positive.
- stickfigure 8y ago
  That seems... ok? It might even be a good thing. With enough regular feedback, we might emotionally adjust to the realization that "maybe you should get checked out" is not OMG I'm going to die.

adrianmonk 8y ago

Humans, oddly enough, have a pretty insatiable appetite for not dying. You can build someone a 10 bedroom mansion and then offer to give them a 20 bedroom mansion instead, and they might say, "Thanks, but 10 bedrooms is quite enough." But people generally won't say no if you can offer them a longer lifespan and/or an increase in quality of life. Incidentally, if retirement age is fixed, increases in longevity lead to a higher proportion of society that is only consuming but not producing. Unless you want a decrease in standard of living, you have to compensate somehow, be it increases in efficiency, rapid population growth, or raising the retirement age. If you raise the retirement age, then medicine needs to help make sure most people are not only alive but can also actually be fit to work at age 70-80.

gepi79 8y ago
The strategy of longevity is to stay young. You do not live longer if you become older in a biological sense. https://youtu.be/Q2Z9pxGwxEY?t=214 https://youtu.be/Q2Z9pxGwxEY?t=214