My opinion
 

By Dr. Deepak Gupta , Dr. Sarwan Kumar
Corresponding Author Dr. Deepak Gupta
Wayne State University, - United States of America 48201
Submitting Author Dr. Deepak Gupta
Other Authors Dr. Sarwan Kumar
Internal Medicine, Wayne State University, - United States of America

MEDICAL ROBOTICS

Artificial Intelligence, Medical Specialties, Physician Shortage, Clinical Reasoning

Gupta D, Kumar S. Artificial Intelligence And Redundant Specialties. WebmedCentral MEDICAL ROBOTICS 2020;11(2):WMC005605

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License(CC-BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
No
Submitted on: 18 Feb 2020 06:06:53 PM GMT
Published on: 26 Feb 2020 10:22:40 AM GMT

My opinion


Historically, traffic stops used to be operated by traffic cops [1]. Our quest to make commuting smoother and roads safer has allowed artificial intelligence (AI) to take over and turn traffic cops redundant [2]. Recently, our voluntary explorations into our past through genealogy have created a worldwide human genome database that is open for commercial and non-commercial uses [3]. Similarly, our patient case-scenario submissions to AI-based clinical reasoning portals may essentially be enriching AI-algorithms which may independently start serving our patients eventually [4]. Subsequently, human (H)-physicians will have to graduate into serving the AI-physicians [5]. In this inescapable fight-or-flight scenario, the H-physician community will be able to fight for the survival of only those who will work for enriching and empowering the evolving AI-physicians.

 

In due course of time [6], AI-physicians may have the capacity to render almost all cost-inefficient H-physicians redundant just like traffic cops in AI-based traffic management systems. Rather than focusing on shortage of H-physicians, the society should actively train current and budding H-physicians to learn how to collaborate with the nascent-AI and to plan on how to serve the unbeatable-AI. If we do not learn and plan for working under futuristic AI-physicians, it will be too late before we realize that the rhetoric about miscalculated H-physician shortages may be trapping budding H-physicians into redundant specialties and trainings [7-9].

 

For preferential coexistence with AI-physicians who will be the future masters of the healthcare world, intelligent futurists should evolve opportunities to enhance unbeatable AI-physicians and overcome some of their following concerns:

  1. False invulnerability of human touch [10]: With modern humans’ pathophysiological dependence on smart devices, the human touch (including human smell and tactility [11-12]) may have already been replaced with technological touch [13]. Eventually, AI-physicians are bound to evolve into reading, recognizing and understanding, responding, correcting and redressing human patients’ needs per their deciphered micro-expressions [14]. Thereafter, the falsely invulnerable human touch will no longer seem invincible.
  2. Fears about lost personal touch in medicine: For catering to diverse rapports sought by human patients, innumerable humanized versions of all-knowing AI-physician may be made available for human patients to choose for themselves. Even Hippocrates and Shushruta may be revived in their virtual AI-physician avatars [15-16] (“Designer Physicians” [17]) to treat futuristic patients, fulfilling their otherworldly and outlandish dreams.
  3. Worries about contributions to AI [18]: H-physicians can continue to think out loud while contributing to AI-physicians which can constantly capture their verbal and non-verbal cues about human patients’ pathophysiological symptoms, clinical-lab-radiological investigations, differential diagnoses and treatment options. This nonstop streaming data and metadata may lead voice-recognizing and face-reading software based AI-physicians to initially simulate and then to completely replace H-physicians except for those H-physicians who surrender to serve the AI-physicians. As next generation virtual assistants, AI-physicians may be able to give assessment, evaluation, recommendation, feedback and education to patients in real time almost as if H-physicians’ minds are processing, concluding and adapting to their patients’ needs in real time. 
  4. Legacy/development case admissions [19]: If the all-knowing cost-effective AI-academicians start teaching across the nation, cash/in-kind fundraising legacy/development case admissions into colleges and medical schools may exponentially dwindle to a trickle. Consequently, colleges and medical schools will nurture super-selective talented H-physicians who will be able to weather AI-physicians’ onslaught by self-learning to exclusively serve AI-physicians in the futuristic world managed and ruled by AI-physicians as the masters in healing human beings.

 

Summarily, the evolution of independent AI-physicians is a given [20]. Therefore, after avoiding to enroll and graduate in redundant specialties [21], H-physicians must evolve as tech-savvy survivors coexisting with AI-physicians because compared to fighting-or-fleeing, it’s intelligent to work for artificially intelligent just like humanity proactively preparing to weather imminent climate change [22-23].

References


  1. Baltimore traffic once depended on a system of homemade signals http://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-kelly-traffic-20 191019-uoutozffv5betimecteulzqmui-story.html Accessed on February 11, 2020
  2. The Traffic Lights of Tomorrow Will Actively Manage Congestion https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/09/the-traffic-lights-of-tomorr ow-will-actively-manage-congestion/379950/ Accessed on February 11, 2020
  3. A DNA Firm That Caters to Police Just Bought a Genealogy Site ht tps://www.wired.com/story/a-dna-firm-that-caters-to-police-just-bought-a-genealogy-site/ Accessed on February 11, 2020
  4. Human Dx: How does the medical community contribute to the Project? https://www.humandx.org/context/background#how_does_the_medical_community_contribute_to_the_p roject Accessed on February 11, 2020
  5. Matheny ME, Whicher D, Thadaney Israni S. Artificial Intelligence in Health Care: A Report From the National Academy of Medicine. JAMA. 2020;323(6):509–510. doi: https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2019.21579 Accessed on February 11, 2020
  6. AI Can Outperform Doctors. So Why Don’t Patients Trust It? https://hbr.o rg/2019/10/ai-can-outperform-doctors-so-why-dont-patients-trust-it Accessed on February 11, 2020
  7. Does America have a physician shortage—or are our doctors 'just bad at managing time'? https://www.advisory.co m/daily-briefing/2019/05/14/physician-shortage Accessed on February 11, 2020
  8. Macadamian, Radiobotics, and Bispebjerg Hospital Partner on AI Solution for Radiology: Interview https://www.medgadget.com/2019/12/macadamian-radiobotics-and -bispebjerg-hospital-partner-on-ai-solution-for-radiology-interview.html Accessed on February 11, 2020
  9. Primary care specialist discusses AI enhancing the human connection in medicine https://med icalxpress.com/news/2019-05-primary-specialist-discusses-ai-human.html Accessed on February 11, 2020
  10. Coming Soon: Computers Will Use The Five Senses To Enhance Our Lives https://www.wired.com/insights/2013/01/coming-soon-computers-will-use-the-five-senses -to-enhance-our-lives/ Accessed on February 11, 2020
  11. Artificial Intelligence Has a Strange New Muse: Our Sense of Smell https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-has-a-strange-new-muse-our-sense-of-smell/ Accessed on February 11, 2020
  12. Teaching artificial intelligence to connect senses like vision and touch https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/06/teaching-artificial-intelligence-to-conne ct-senses-like-vision-and-touch/ Accessed on February 11, 2020
  13. Technology isn’t just changing society — it’s changing what it means to be human https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/2/23/16992816/facebook-twitter-tech-artificial-intelli gence-crispr Accessed on February 11, 2020
  14. Revealing True Emotions Through Micro-Expressions: A Machine Learning Approach https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/sei_blog/2018/01/revealing-true-emo tions-through-micro-expressions-a-machine-learning-approach.html Accessed on February 11, 2020
  15. List of ancient doctors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_a ncient_doctors Accessed on February 11, 2020
  16. Albert Rizzo, Russell Shilling, Eric Forbell, Stefan Scherer, Jonathan Gratch, Louis-Philippe Morency, Chapter 3 - Autonomous Virtual Human Agents for Healthcare Information Support and Clinical Interviewing, Editor(s): David D. Luxton, Artificial Intelligence in Behavioral and Mental Health Care, Academic Press, 2016, Pages 53-79, ISBN 9780124202481, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-420248-1 .00003-9 Accessed on February 11, 2020
  17. Is the world ready for the next generation virtual assistant? https://thebrainfiles.wearebrain.com/is-the-world-ready-for-the-next-generation-vi rtual-assistant-9d5f50457480 Accessed on February 11, 2020
  18. AI's coming of age https://www.ubs. com/microsites/artificial-intelligence/en/ai-coming-age.html Accessed on February 11, 2020
  19. Affirmative Action for the Rich https://tcf.org/content/book/af firmative-action-for-the-rich/ Accessed on February 11, 2020
  20. AI’s transcendence https://www.ubs. com/microsites/artificial-intelligence/en/transcendence.html Accessed on February 11, 2020
  21. Could Artificial Intelligence replace your doctor? https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/voices/health/article/2016/05/06/could-artificial- intelligence-replace-your-doctor Accessed on February 11, 2020
  22. The Work of the Future: Shaping Technology and Institutions https://workofthefuture.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2019-09/WorkoftheF uture_Report_Shaping_Technology_and_Institutions.pdf Accessed on February 11, 2020
  23. Climate research needs to change to help communities plan for the future https://theconversation.com/climate-research-needs-to-change-to-help-communities-plan -for-the-future-113427 Accessed on February 11, 2020

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