5 ms·

I know we hold doctors in high regard, but I must decline in allocating some magical "vibe" or "spidey-sense" as the article writes. In my opinion a well built

I know we hold doctors in high regard, but I must decline in allocating some magical "vibe" or "spidey-sense" as the article writes. In my opinion a well built system will replace all doctors in non-research, medical functions. The notion that somehow one needs "vibe" to recognize something is wrong when Gladys in the example "vomited a huge quantity of blood" is concerning, and wee bit self-aggrandizing. The doctor reacted because there was clear evidence of an issue, not because supernatural abilities. > A doctor’s foundational clinical mental models are built during residency... And, sad to say often stays that way for the rest of their careers. Anecdotally, I have seen this clearest with dentists and ophthalmologists. They will fossilize into their own thinking and unable or unwilling to pick up new methods and procedures (unless sufficiently incentivized by the selling company). another problem is frailty. I walked out on Monday dental appointment when I could tell the dentist had a "rough weekend". I do not need a person with a hang-over digging in my mouth with sharp spinning objects. A system that is updated near real time with new research, new medical advances, not getting tired or distracted is more preferable to me than a human. Maybe the actions are not performed by the machine, it just prompts the human to do and feed the information back, maybe it will also perform the actions. All is possible in the future. When it comes to research and emotional interaction, yes, doctors still hold an edge.

dap 2y ago
I don’t think anybody would claim it’s supernatural. Only that for doctors who have seen lots of patients, they (their subconscious?) pick up on signals that they cannot consciously articulate, which means they can’t be easily taught or checked for. (Over time I think we do catalog more of these things but it takes a lot of instances and some explicit reflection before people can identify and describe the pattern.) I’ve got plenty of criticisms for doctors and medicine but I absolutely think this is true because I experience the same in my own personal and professional life.
andai 2y ago
Agree with most of what you said, which is unfortunate (except for the silver lining that machines have the potential to massively increase both the supply and quality of medical treatment). One bit puzzles me though, why would human doctors have an edge in research? Wouldn't the "person" who can read a trillion times more, remember everything, cross-reference it, and monitor billions of realtime data points (from billions of patients) for patterns, have a slight advantage?
- WaitWaitWha 2y ago
  My conjecture is that some research requires a type of out of the box thinking that is not readily available in current technical solutions.
- cycomanic 2y ago
  I find it interesting that you are so bullish on AI to replace doctors. Similar to fully autonomous driving, I think we need a leap towards GAI to really replace doctors. At the moment we see way too many failure modes that seem to be inherit in how ML systems work. Don't get me wrong I think ML systems will be great helper systems but I don't see them replace doctors any time soon, if not for the simple reason that a person is much more likely to trust another person than an electronic system and that is actually part of both diagnostics and treatment
rscho 2y ago
Almost all medical specialties require a massive amount of know-how, and are only very weakly data-driven. I'm an anesthesiologist, and even anesthesia is weakly data-driven. Honestly, people who think AI can replace a doc in the current state of tech do not understand anything about practical medical care. The day of AI will come, but not today nor in the close future.
devilbunny 2y ago
A patient who is vomiting blood does not need a "vibe" or "spidey-sense" to figure out something is wrong. There are, however, a surprisingly large number of situations in which doctors have to work with rather less information about what is going on, especially when you move to the hospital. I'm an anesthesiologist, so I don't have a clinic at all. I meet you just before surgery and we go. Vibes and spidey-senses matter a lot, because I don't have time to run down a two-week-long investigation of your problem - I have to fix it right now or you're dead. Could AI improve me? Probably. Can the AI observe the way humans can? Not yet. Can they intervene like humans can? Not even close. When you have an autonomous robot that can successfully run down the American Society of Anesthesiologists' difficult airway algorithm, you're getting there.
bjornsing 2y ago
> The notion that somehow one needs "vibe" to recognize something is wrong when Gladys in the example "vomited a huge quantity of blood" is concerning, and wee bit self-aggrandizing. The doctor reacted because there was clear evidence of an issue, not because supernatural abilities. For the record: The doctor stayed in the room due to a “spidey-sense” or “vibe”. The impressive part was predicting the vomit, not reacting to it.

dap 2y ago

I don’t think anybody would claim it’s supernatural. Only that for doctors who have seen lots of patients, they (their subconscious?) pick up on signals that they cannot consciously articulate, which means they can’t be easily taught or checked for. (Over time I think we do catalog more of these things but it takes a lot of instances and some explicit reflection before people can identify and describe the pattern.) I’ve got plenty of criticisms for doctors and medicine but I absolutely think this is true because I experience the same in my own personal and professional life.

andai 2y ago

Agree with most of what you said, which is unfortunate (except for the silver lining that machines have the potential to massively increase both the supply and quality of medical treatment). One bit puzzles me though, why would human doctors have an edge in research? Wouldn't the "person" who can read a trillion times more, remember everything, cross-reference it, and monitor billions of realtime data points (from billions of patients) for patterns, have a slight advantage?

WaitWaitWha 2y ago
My conjecture is that some research requires a type of out of the box thinking that is not readily available in current technical solutions.
cycomanic 2y ago
I find it interesting that you are so bullish on AI to replace doctors. Similar to fully autonomous driving, I think we need a leap towards GAI to really replace doctors. At the moment we see way too many failure modes that seem to be inherit in how ML systems work. Don't get me wrong I think ML systems will be great helper systems but I don't see them replace doctors any time soon, if not for the simple reason that a person is much more likely to trust another person than an electronic system and that is actually part of both diagnostics and treatment

rscho 2y ago

Almost all medical specialties require a massive amount of know-how, and are only very weakly data-driven. I'm an anesthesiologist, and even anesthesia is weakly data-driven. Honestly, people who think AI can replace a doc in the current state of tech do not understand anything about practical medical care. The day of AI will come, but not today nor in the close future.

devilbunny 2y ago

A patient who is vomiting blood does not need a "vibe" or "spidey-sense" to figure out something is wrong. There are, however, a surprisingly large number of situations in which doctors have to work with rather less information about what is going on, especially when you move to the hospital. I'm an anesthesiologist, so I don't have a clinic at all. I meet you just before surgery and we go. Vibes and spidey-senses matter a lot, because I don't have time to run down a two-week-long investigation of your problem - I have to fix it right now or you're dead. Could AI improve me? Probably. Can the AI observe the way humans can? Not yet. Can they intervene like humans can? Not even close. When you have an autonomous robot that can successfully run down the American Society of Anesthesiologists' difficult airway algorithm, you're getting there.

bjornsing 2y ago

> The notion that somehow one needs "vibe" to recognize something is wrong when Gladys in the example "vomited a huge quantity of blood" is concerning, and wee bit self-aggrandizing. The doctor reacted because there was clear evidence of an issue, not because supernatural abilities. For the record: The doctor stayed in the room due to a “spidey-sense” or “vibe”. The impressive part was predicting the vomit, not reacting to it.