3 ms·

I was at a podiatrist yesterday who explained that what he's trying to do is to "train" an LLM agent on the articles and research papers he's published to creat

by scott_w 9mo ago

I was at a podiatrist yesterday who explained that what he's trying to do is to "train" an LLM agent on the articles and research papers he's published to create a chatbot that can provide answers to the most common questions more quickly than his reception team can. He's also using it to speed up writing his reports to send to patients. Longer term, he was also quite optimistic on its ability to cut out roles like radiologists, instead having a software program interpret the images and write a report to send to a consultant. Since the consultant already checks the report against any images, the AI being more sensitive to potential issues is a positive thing: giving him the power to discard erroneous results rather than potentially miss something more malign.

engeljohnb 9mo ago
> Longer term, he was also quite optimistic on its ability to cut out roles like radiologists, instead having a software program interpret the images and write a report to send to a consultant. As a medical imaging tech, I think this is a terrible idea. At least for the test I perform, a lot of redundancy and double-checking is necessary because results can easily be misleading without a diligent tech or critical-thinking on the part of the reading physician. For instance, imaging at slightly the wrong angle can make a normal image look like pathology, or vice versa. Maybe other tests are simpler than mine, but I doubt it. If you've ever asked an AI a question about your field of expertise and been amazed at the nonsense it spouts, why would you trust it to read your medical tests? > Since the consultant already checks the report against any images, the AI being more sensitive to potential issues is a positive thing: giving him the power to discard erroneous results rather than potentially miss something more malign. Unless they had the exact same schooling as the radiologist, I wouldn't trust the consultant to interpret my test, even if paired with an AI. There's a reason this is a whole specialized field -- because it's not as simple as interpreting an EKG.

by scott_w 9mo ago

engeljohnb 9mo ago

> Longer term, he was also quite optimistic on its ability to cut out roles like radiologists, instead having a software program interpret the images and write a report to send to a consultant. As a medical imaging tech, I think this is a terrible idea. At least for the test I perform, a lot of redundancy and double-checking is necessary because results can easily be misleading without a diligent tech or critical-thinking on the part of the reading physician. For instance, imaging at slightly the wrong angle can make a normal image look like pathology, or vice versa. Maybe other tests are simpler than mine, but I doubt it. If you've ever asked an AI a question about your field of expertise and been amazed at the nonsense it spouts, why would you trust it to read your medical tests? > Since the consultant already checks the report against any images, the AI being more sensitive to potential issues is a positive thing: giving him the power to discard erroneous results rather than potentially miss something more malign. Unless they had the exact same schooling as the radiologist, I wouldn't trust the consultant to interpret my test, even if paired with an AI. There's a reason this is a whole specialized field -- because it's not as simple as interpreting an EKG.