Fact or Fallacy: Could Artificial Intelligence Replace Doctors?

Much discussion and debate surround the topic of physicians and the use of artificial intelligence. The notion that AI could ever fully replace a doctor is not a completely absurd one -- there are many jobs, including white-collar professions, that eventually will be replaced by automation and various levels of machine-learning technology. Certainly, from a pragmatic perspective, it is interesting to consider the possibility of a physician who never needs to eat, never tires, can read thousands of pages of new research every day, can record and remember every experience and can even communicate in multiple languages. But can a machine provide better patient care? In a recent Harvard Business Review article, authors Richard Susskind, chairman of the advisory board of the Oxford Internet Institute, and his son Daniel, an economics fellow at the University of Oxford's Balliol College, say that AI will not only support physicians in their work, but also ultimately replace them.