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samziboy t1_iz0pgwa wrote

Reply to comment by user45 in New type of surgical robot used to remove throat tumour by diacewrb

The comment I replied to SPECIFICALLY talked about AI replacing an entire pathology department. I also mentioned in my comment about AI increasing efficiency.

If you wanna convince yourself that it’s easier to train AI to the level of a specialist physician than it is to drive a bus then go ahead. My point was that these problems are very complex even for AI. What exactly do you think pathologists and radiologists do exactly? I think YOU are grossly underestimating what it would require for AI to be as good as a trained specialist

Identifying a particular lesion on an image is just the bare minimum and even that is incredibly difficult even for AI. They still need huge amounts of understanding to decide whether we should treat now or wait. I can’t even begin to type out how essential these specialist are. AI will need real physicians for the foreseeable future because you need someone to make clinical judgement, something no AI is capable of doing. Imaging going to an AI to make a judgement about whether to treat your mothers cancer or not. Would you take that risk?

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user45 t1_iz0y3xg wrote

I think that person is talking about “replacing the department” with ONE pathologist, so the repetitive, tedious portions can be automated, and a human specialist to confirm or mark exceptions - not have AI determine my grandmother’s cancer treatment.

I’m not saying it’s easier to train a bus driver, but I am challenging the notion that AI will replace blue collar worker first (or only them), and that somehow will free us up to pursue more white collar or professional careers.

And those careers are not immune, IBM’s Watson has been advising lung cancer treatment at Sloan-Kettering nearly 10 years. AI’s playing GO or Jeopardy may seem trivial but represent accelerating change in AI space and thus real challenges for many career fields. And the higher salary jobs represent that much greater incentive for automation.

I wasn’t making a jab that doctors, but the complexity of your job is no guarantee that it will be replaced only long after truck are driving themselves.

And who knows, maybe in 10 years I will be comfortable having an AI provider deciding my grandmas treatment - and I may not be the minority.

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GlowforgePokemon62 t1_iz173uq wrote

It’s this 100%. This is being driven by several factors but the main one is cost. Finance departments are targeting high paying jobs and looking at what they can do without.

Think about it, you are a hospital having a horrible time with staff turnover in your breast pathology group. You have 5 headcount open for a team of 10 (15 total headcount). You have had these job openings listed since the pandemic. To meet your patients needs you have been sending out to another lab.

Now a sales rep for a medical automation company comes in and shows you examples of how you can increase your overall throughput with your current staff by switching certain tests and protocols to a digital scanner, as well improve TAT for your HEME testing to 24-48hrs.

Are you going to continue holding capital in reserve to add incremental headcount? Or are you going to outlay capital for a more efficient solution? Different HCO’s make different decisions, but the largest clinics are all diving into automation headfirst not toefirst.

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GlowforgePokemon62 t1_iz15pjw wrote

I’m sorry where do I say automation is going to replace the whole department? I say incremental increasing of headcount will be curtailed due to automation increasing efficiency of current staff. You just would rather invent my words to argue against a point I never made.

You say it’s easier to replace truck drivers than doctors, but it’s not that simple. You need to think about the task being done. Is it easier for a robot to read off a genetic sequence data file or drive a car?

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