By coincidence news of a new quality of life AI decision-maker came out last week. This detects a disease of the eye and can be used for diagnosis by unqualified people – though of course the medical mafia do not abdicate their control. However, this one produces verifiable results so while the software is designed to be autonomous it can at least be audited to see if it produces the correct answers. “… This means that the technology can be used by a nurse or doctor who’s not an eye specialist, making diagnosis more accessible. For example, patients wouldn’t need to wait for an eye specialist to be available to get a diagnosis. ” However it is yet another job at risk!
I am no way sure that I can agree with your assessment ‘However it is yet another job at risk!’, unless it might put a few white stick and guild dog trainers on short time. Currently a great deal of specialist work is done, not by doctors, but by specifically trained technicians some of whom have skills and training equal to or superior to those of doctors. Some (including some doctors) sadly do not aspire to such higher sill levels. Automating aspects of the medical industry has been doing on for many years, a fact welcomed by the surgeon who performed my cataract surgery, quote: ‘This used to be a slowly evolving industry, now new improvements come along every three months.‘ His office was filled with machines, several of which were already seen as being more museum fodder than ‘front line’ tools. He rejoiced at the progress of giving people back good quality sight far faster and easier – though not entirely cheaper!
One medical centre had a not very modern machine that could batch process 40 results at a time, the obsolete wetware could only load and run one at a time. Wonder why medicine often features long waits for news? Happily the machine is still there, but the dinosaur has (been) moved on along with their partner in crime(s). I do not know the specific condition which can be diagnosed by your AI device set, but I am aware of some that require minimal specific training to detect and which do respond to early detection. Treatment is where the log jam is often encountered and anything that can improve the flow rate of successful treatments is to be welcomed.
I have to declare a personal and therefore an emotional connection to the need for earlier diagnosis of otherwise hard to spot conditions especially when all clears may ‘accidentally’, (i.e. not through negligence) be declared due to current weaknesses in detection processes.
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