Will Robots Eventually Replace Doctors?
As the world is growing and developing, advancements in innovation have become a part of it. Computers, technology, robots, and AI (artificial intelligence) are constantly growing. The future is of AI technology as the algorithms and code in robots work with high accuracy. It is been reported that tasks performed by AI robots are more accurate, precise, and have less chance of errors. AI has eased the world in every department and at the same time, the chances of human errors are also decreased by many folds. So why the question arises “Will Robots Eventually Replace Doctors?”.
Let’s check it out.
Robots and AI
Robots are programmable machines. They are designed to do a series of complex tasks automatically. AI (Artificial Intelligence) is the intelligence possessed by machines, unlike human intelligence. The AI and robots when combined give rise to AI Bots which are more capable of doing tasks assigned and learning. AI serves as the brain of a robot that has a high level of autonomy able to optimize tasks. With time, advancement in Artificial Intelligence for robots has increased to a level that these robots are now performing successful surgeries on animals.
AI Robots in Health Care
AI Bots are increasing their role in the health care industry. These robots are highly accurate and precise in their calculations and performing tasks. They can perform as a radiologist to diagnosing any cancerous mass in humans. Some experts believe that there will be AI Bots instead of doctors by 2035. AI robots can store and evaluate enormous amounts of data and predict on basis of that data. This can reduce human error and limitations. It is believed that the use of AI robots will be cost-effective and accurate delivery of results could be excepted. AI has an edge over traditional analytics and clinical decision-making techniques.
Will AI Robots replace doctors?
According to Geoffrey Hinton: “Training radiologist should be stopped as in the coming decade this function will be well performed by AI”
In 2018 on World Medical Innovation Forum (WMIF), Partners Healthcare showed their research on artificial intelligence. It showed that how AI is highly influencing some particular areas of health care replacing health care professionals reducing the cost and its effects will be visible within the next decade.
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Assisting Medical personnel
AI-controlled robots will help to improve the role of doctors, surgeons, and nurses. Over the next couple of years, AI’s use will increase which will reduce the complications and errors that can occur during surgery. It will help make the hospital stay of patients shorter. McKinsey research mentions that these AI bots have the potential of replacing nurses and they are also increasing the productivity of nurses.
Accuracy Rather than intuition
As all certified doctors are human beings, they often analyze patients based on their instincts. Some diseases are difficult to spot on the molecular level. AI bots have programmed precise algorithms that can judge those kinds of problems or diseases like cancer at a very early stage. It’s like a click of a button for an AI bot to search through researches, books, and verdicts of all-time successful doctors to analyze and give a solid judgment. This could be highly beneficial for humankind. For example, AI robots are efficient in diagnosing early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease just by eye patterns.
AI Could Take Place of Doctors:
AI robots have proven that they can be used to fulfill the shortage of doctors and physicians. The positions of doctors and nurses are at risk. These AI bots could replace doctors in many parts of the world. Having AI robots will be cheaper and more effective. Like in a village they can prove to be useful. These robots will learn the patterns of highly successful doctors and can implement their treating ways after/before or during the lifetime of the doctor. This way these machines can prove to be a good health care AI.
Doctors are Still Irreplaceable:
Though AI robots are outperforming doctors. Some experts do believe that robots not being human beings can’t replace them. They don’t possess the same emotions as a human doctor. They lack what you can call: “A doctor’s soft touch”. Medical futurists believe that physicians and surgeons can’t be replaced and other medical professionals will have more use of these machines in other jobs. There could be an in-between situation in the future where the doctors will not be replaced, however, AI will surely make life easy. So many tasks performed today will disappear and many will add up.
AI Bots being programmed work like computers. They can’t achieve the trust of patients. It is said that “never hide something from a doctor or lawyer”. Many patients will not be able to open up to a robot as they lack the most important thing which is empathy. Empathy can only be found in human doctors. As most patients don’t want to rely on AI robots they will not be willing to pay much for getting treatment from an AI robot.
Acting According to Situations
AI robots though are highly accurate and precise but they are working based on calculations performed by their system. These bots would not be able to act accordingly to the situation as there are a huge number of people and illnesses. These illnesses are varying in nature and are getting diverse with time. It is human intelligence that can go through new any challenges of health care. For example, a kid has acute stomach pain and it is not getting any better with meds. Doing tests also went in vain. This will be a limitation point for an AI robot as they do not have programming knowledge about this new illness. However, human intelligence can interact and investigate effectively. They will eventually find the problem based on experience that the kid has swollen a specific kind of insecticide.
Other Medical Tasks
In medical science, there are always tasks, responsibilities, and duties that technology can not perform. An AI Robot can sift through hundreds of pages of many but when a person comes to it choking it will be unable to perform the Heimlich maneuver.
Conclusion
AI robots are an amazing invention of technology. They have shown great results yet they do have their fair share of limitations too. They can be used effectively in a mixed environment consisting of both human doctors and AI Bots. This will greatly enhance the productivity of the health sector and its services for the public. The areas where AI robots can effectively perform like radiology, surgery assistant, replacing nurse, etc. these areas should be handled by AI robots. Robots can and will not completely replace doctors as they still can’t compete with the intelligence of a human brain. Rather they can be assisting doctors and will replace humans in some major areas of our health care sector.
