Doctors Are Confident That AI Won't Replace Them

Doctors Are Confident That AI Won't Replace ThemGetty Companies such as DeepMind and IBM have been at the forefront of introducing AI into healthcare, with their smart algorithms proving adept at finding patterns in large quantities of data that enable the machines to make accurate predictions in the diagnosis of a range of conditions. There have been projects to provide more accurate and earlier diagnoses for mental health, dementia, Parkinson's, skin cancer, Alzheimer's, arthritis and, well, you get the picture. The reporting of many of these projects has been accompanied by breathless claims that doctors work will soon be automated, with these claims seeming to be supported by the growing number of AI-based triage systems on the market that claim to be able to accurately diagnose patients after hearing of their various symptoms. One might imagine that given this technological onslaught, doctors are a bit edgy about their long-term prospects, but that doesn't appear to be the case at all. Indeed, a recent study set out to ask doctors operating in primary care across the United Kingdom how they felt about AI technologies and whether they believed their job was at risk, and the answer was an overwhelming no.