AI to replace Doctors:A trivial untruth

Artificial Intelligence (AI)has been on the rise for the last decade. According to Wikipedia the definition of AI is “a system’s ability to correctly interpret external data, to learn from such data, and to use those learning to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation”. The primary aim of health-related AI applications is to analyze relationships between prevention or treatment techniques and patient outcomes.The ability of AI to support various aspects of the health sector becomes a major leap that can produce prevention strategies and treatment approaches that are much more efficient and effective, including reducing the cost of medical care. Even so, some doctors believe that although AI can do a variety of things, AI cannot assume the role of human interaction.

So, where is AI being used in the healthcare sector?

1)Remote Surgery

Remote surgery is a method, which provides the doctor to perform surgery remotely through a robotic surgical system from anywhere in the world. It promises to allow the expertise of specialized surgeons to be available to patients worldwide, without the need for patients to travel beyond their local hospital. But there is a caveat the cost of such systems is approximately near $1 million and the operational costs ranging from $150k to $200k.Before its acceptance on a broader scale, many issues will need to be resolved. For example, established clinical protocols, training, and global compatibility of equipment must be developed. Another technological limitation is the risk of interference with communications (hacking). Before its acceptance on a broader scale, many issues will need to be resolved. For example, established clinical protocols, training, and global compatibility of equipment must be developed. Another technological limitation is the risk of interference with communications (hacking).

2)Virtual Nurse

Virtual nurses are virtual assistants designed to do the tasks performed by a normal nurse. They perform normal tasks like monitoring the stats of the patients and is programmed to provide a personalized experience to the patients. Although they can not provide empathy like a normal nurse.

3)Discovering new drugs

AI is now being used by big pharma companies to discover new drugs.Using a combination of human strategy and creativity in synchronization with the advantages of algorithms could, therefore, present a plethora of new tactics and problem-solving for drug discovery, which has the potential to increase productivity.

4)Disease prediction

Experts use machine learning in health care primarily to determine which patients are at risk of developing certain conditions, like diabetes, asthma, heart disease, and other lifetime illnesses.

5)Monitoring Health

he ability to monitor patients using AI may allow for the communication of information to physicians if possible disease activity may have occurred. A wearable device may allow for constant monitoring of a patient and also allow for the ability to notice changes that may be less distinguishable by humans.

6)Pattern detection and treatment suggestion in the spread of disease

There are many diseases and there also many ways that AI has been used to efficiently and accurately diagnose them. Some of the diseases that are the most notorious such as Diabetes, and Cardiovascular Disease which are both in the top ten for causes of death worldwide have been the basis behind a lot of the research/testing to help get an accurate diagnosis. Due to such a high mortality rate being associated with these diseases there have been efforts to integrate various methods in helping get an accurate diagnosis’.

So, What makes Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence Different?

AI and Human Intelligence are different in many ways. AI has many advantages like the speed of execution of an AI system cannot be matched by a human. AI provides the solution without any bias based on an opinion. AI can work with any kind of interruption due to fatigue. AI dominates any tasks that require monotonous execution. On the other hand, Human Intelligence excels at making a complex decision based on experience. Human Intelligence can manage multiple tasks at the same time, while AI has to learn a particular task every time. Human Intelligence also dominates the type of tasks that requires the use of abstract qualities and improvises much better than AI .

The role of AI in healthcare

Artificial intelligence is assisting doctors. According to Bloomberg Technology, Microsoft has developed AI to help doctors find the right treatments for cancer. There is a great amount of research and drugs developed relating to cancer. In detail, there are more than 800 medicines and vaccines to treat cancer. This negatively affects the doctors, because there are too many options to choose from, making it more difficult to choose the right drugs for the patients. Microsoft is working on a project to develop a machine called “Hanover”. Its goal is to memorize all the papers necessary to cancer and help predict which combinations of drugs will be most effective for each patient. One project that is being worked on at the moment is fighting myeloid leukemia, fatal cancer where the treatment has not improved in decades. Another study was reported to have found that artificial intelligence was as good as trained doctors in identifying skin cancers. Another study is using artificial intelligence to try to monitor multiple high-risk patients, and this is done by asking each patient numerous questions based on data acquired from live doctor to patient interactions. One study was done with transfer learning, the machine performed a diagnosis similar to a well-trained ophthalmologist and could generate a decision within 30 seconds on whether or not the patient should be referred for treatment, with more than 95% accuracy.

Can AI replace Doctors?

The short answer is no. Although the field of Artificial Intelligence has made many advancements in the past couple of decades the systems currently in use are not very good when it comes down to empathy or reasoning. You train them to do a job and it will do it over and over like clockwork while getting more efficient at it. They can be excellent tools for doctors and nurses to deliver the data faster but the interpretation of the data is done by the doctor or nurse. Also, robots can not perform various complex task and surgery like a human. AI’s job is to assist the professional rather than replacing them that has been the motive of AI since the start.

“Machines will do what human beings are incapable of doing.Machines will partner and cooperate with humans, rather than become mankind’s biggest enemy.”- Jack Ma

To conclude I would like to say that AI will replace many jobs which require monotonous implementation due to which the efficiency of the whole organization is affected. But the jobs that require complex implementations which rely on abstract qualities and reasoning abilities will be benefited by the assistance of the AI.