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As with other technical advances, it’s unlikely to cause direct job loss, and more likely to make the existing workforce more productive and the product better

As with other technical advances, it’s unlikely to cause direct job loss, and more likely to make the existing workforce more productive and the product better and cheaper. It might, at the margins, make ‘miracle-worker’ doctors less so. Those doctors will be less able to demand exorbitant fees. It will also make more-accurate cancer diagnosis available to more doctors, and therefore to more patients. But no one (in the medium term) will not use an oncologist because Watson exists. These are all good things. In finance, the computers are doing most of the work but employment hasn’t waned (at least not because of the computers). The underlying reason is that demand for improved results, in both fields, has no foreseeable upper bound. Demand grows to consume the new capacity. There is no upper limit on ‘better cancer diagnosis’, as there is no upper limit on ‘better financial returns’. Put another way, Watson-assisted diagnosis should be thought of as a ‘new’ product, stoking new demand, in the same way better Macs drive demand every year. Someday you’ll buy a cheap health robot at Walmart, but this development is not that. (ps Tyler Cowen’s new book has some interesting stuff on this topic.)

malandrew 13y ago
My mom is suffering from end-stage cancer and my experience with modern cancer medicine is that it is farce compared to the things we do in our profession in the name of getting someone to click on a banner ad. Given the rate at which this is progressing, I'd be more than happy to let Watson handle my care within 3-4 years time. The point at which something like Watson can wholly replace doctors is much closer than you think if these claims are truly valid and not being excessively pumped up for PR purposes. Don't get me wrong, her doctor is a wonderful person that is very knowledgeable, but the way cancer medicine is done today is a lot of guess work and experimentation, with long lead times between measurements (blood tests and whatnot) that are hardly statistically valid and uber prone to tampering (used loosely in the quality control sense). The existing workforce that will become far more productive are not the doctors. It's the nurses and physician's assistants. They provide value that is much harder to automate, although the Japanese certainly are trying to make progress in this area with humanoid robots to care for patients.
- crusso 13y ago
  the way cancer medicine is done today is a lot of guess work and experimentation On top of the things you point out, cancer is all about the genes - the genes in the host as well as the myriad of mutations in the cancer. Cancer treatment of the future will involve sequencing of the patient's genome and repeated sequencing of samples of the cancer itself. The computer will be needed to dynamically account for mutations and prescribe treatment for each one as it arises. Networks of medical computer systems will be able to consult at internet speeds on specific mutations to get suggestions for treatment that are built upon results of other computer prescriptions whose efficacy is much better recorded, processed, and correlated. As you say, it will be the second tier of the medical industry that most benefits from this revolution. Any nurse who can follow the instructions given by the computer for gathering information, administering tests, feeding results back to the computer, and providing treatment could become a world class oncologist. Probably doctors will still play a role in some level of oversight of what the computers are prescribing -- but that will fade as our trust level increases over time. Within ten years, computers will be assisting doctors on every diagnosis. Within twenty, they'll be assisting nurses, mostly replacing the need for doctor time. Within thirty years, you'll be able to perform your own interactions with a medical computer as easily as you Google today -- probably easier since it will interact with you using natural language.
manicdee 13y ago
The opening chapters of Anne Macaffrey's, "The Ship a Who Searched" show the problems of relying on a cheap home healthcare robot. Hypatia Cade might not have become a brain ship if the robot had been able to tell that Tia was not just engaging in attention-seeking behaviour.

malandrew 13y ago

My mom is suffering from end-stage cancer and my experience with modern cancer medicine is that it is farce compared to the things we do in our profession in the name of getting someone to click on a banner ad. Given the rate at which this is progressing, I'd be more than happy to let Watson handle my care within 3-4 years time. The point at which something like Watson can wholly replace doctors is much closer than you think if these claims are truly valid and not being excessively pumped up for PR purposes. Don't get me wrong, her doctor is a wonderful person that is very knowledgeable, but the way cancer medicine is done today is a lot of guess work and experimentation, with long lead times between measurements (blood tests and whatnot) that are hardly statistically valid and uber prone to tampering (used loosely in the quality control sense). The existing workforce that will become far more productive are not the doctors. It's the nurses and physician's assistants. They provide value that is much harder to automate, although the Japanese certainly are trying to make progress in this area with humanoid robots to care for patients.

crusso 13y ago
the way cancer medicine is done today is a lot of guess work and experimentation On top of the things you point out, cancer is all about the genes - the genes in the host as well as the myriad of mutations in the cancer. Cancer treatment of the future will involve sequencing of the patient's genome and repeated sequencing of samples of the cancer itself. The computer will be needed to dynamically account for mutations and prescribe treatment for each one as it arises. Networks of medical computer systems will be able to consult at internet speeds on specific mutations to get suggestions for treatment that are built upon results of other computer prescriptions whose efficacy is much better recorded, processed, and correlated. As you say, it will be the second tier of the medical industry that most benefits from this revolution. Any nurse who can follow the instructions given by the computer for gathering information, administering tests, feeding results back to the computer, and providing treatment could become a world class oncologist. Probably doctors will still play a role in some level of oversight of what the computers are prescribing -- but that will fade as our trust level increases over time. Within ten years, computers will be assisting doctors on every diagnosis. Within twenty, they'll be assisting nurses, mostly replacing the need for doctor time. Within thirty years, you'll be able to perform your own interactions with a medical computer as easily as you Google today -- probably easier since it will interact with you using natural language.

manicdee 13y ago

The opening chapters of Anne Macaffrey's, "The Ship a Who Searched" show the problems of relying on a cheap home healthcare robot. Hypatia Cade might not have become a brain ship if the robot had been able to tell that Tia was not just engaging in attention-seeking behaviour.