7 Things You Can't Expect From A.I. In Healthcare

With A.I.-based technologies’ ability to elucidate medical conditions in unconventional ways and even forecasting public health crises, it might seem like the technology will replace every facet of healthcare. 

However, this is far from being the case. In particular, the human factor is very much relevant and missing from A.I. That’s why there are as many things we can’t expect from such algorithms as we can expect from them. Let’s see what we certainly won’t see from the technology within the next decade.

1. A.I. will replace medical professionals

No, as smart and capable as they might sound, A.I. will not replace medical professionals. This fear of an A.I. takeover is felt across virtually all industries, including healthcare. While it’s true that such software will become integral parts of the healthcare system, they will function more as tools aiding human medical experts in perfecting their craft.

Among the reasons is that such advanced technologies need competent professionals to operate and interpret their analyses. Additionally, human healthcare workers will always be needed to solve multi-layered challenges that require creativity. But what is also true is that medical professionals who embrace A. I. will replace those who do not work with it.

2. A.I. will provide as much empathy as a real-life doctor-patient relationships can

While some A.I. might eventually be endowed with “artificial empathy” skills, they will not replace a real-life doctor-patient relationship. On the contrary, the age of A.I. will reinforce compassionate care more than ever.

As these tools manage repetitive and monotonous tasks, they will free up time for doctors; meaning they can spend more time with their patients. They will be able to devote more time for the more nuanced empathy and compassion that treating patients require, which is only achievable through the human touch. In fact, with A.I. handling administrative tasks and providing diagnostic insights, physicians will need to hone their empathy and communication skills to better attend to their patients.

3. A.I. will improve privacy-related issues in healthcare

This is contrary to the functioning of artificial intelligence algorithms. For these software to function, they feed on data, without which they will fail. As Big Tech companies invest heavily in healthcare A.I., they will continuously go after data, which often come from patients.

Source: https://hbr.org/

For instance, Google, Amazon and Facebook are all engaged in the healthcare A.I. race and aren’t showing signs of slowing down. Amazon Alexa and the NHS partnered in 2019 for the A.I.-based Alexa assistant to offer health advice. But reports showed how Amazon secretly stored recordings of Alexa users. Previously, the Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust was found to share large amounts of patient data to Google’s DeepMind A.I. branch to develop a new platform. But patients weren’t properly informed that their data was being used for this purpose. Such privacy issues will only worsen with A.I., as we explored in our latest e-book.

4. A.I. will create fully autonomous surgical robots

There’s a scene in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith where robots autonomously operate a severely burnt and amputated Anakin Skywalker. These machines perform life-saving reconstructive surgery on Anakin, enclosing him in the iconic Darth Vader suit, without any human supervision. Other sci-fi movies have similar depictions of fully-autonomous A.I. surgical robots performing complex operations without human assistance. This will likely remain within the realm of science-fiction as robots will rather serve as assistants or even equipment in the OT.

Source: newscientist.com

Surgeries require fine actions and even creative thinking because the anatomy of each individual is different. Robots can assist in basic tasks such as providing surgical tools or function as tools for delicate actions such as the da Vinci surgical system. But these require human surgeons to function and it's the latter that can better handle unforeseen complications as the surgery is ongoing.

5. A.I. will make medical decisions alone

Having an A.I. not only aid in clinical decision-making but also make medical decisions on its own sounds attractive. In particular, it could help alleviate the psychological toll on the medical staff when it comes to morally challenging decisions. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, physicians had to choose whom to prioritise for life-saving medical resources due to overwhelmed facilities. Would leaving the decision to some software take off the responsibility from healthcare workers?

Even if an A.I. can mine medical records and genomic data for the best insights, leaving medical decisions only up to the software is not the best course of action. There are several issues with such an approach as it requires the collective input of ethicists, programmers and medical professionals. Moreover, A.I. is not immune to bias as we shall see in the next point. We won’t see such software make medical decisions on their own. Instead, they will provide insights to help human professionals take better actions.

6. A.I. will not have bias

Artificial intelligence is no stranger to biases. Expecting these smart algorithms to make unbiased decisions, even in healthcare, is not something we should do. The dataset on which an A.I. is trained is extremely crucial; but healthcare data is, as Quartz puts it, “extremely male and extremely white.” This has serious implications when A.I. tools analyse data outside of this demographic.

Source: www.geneticliteracyproject.org

Datasets fed to algorithms are ripe with ingrained social injustices. Additionally, the programmers working on such software can, consciously or unconsciously, influence an A.I. They can unconsciously implement values and beliefs about the world into the code while willingly leaving out some parameters that would be more representative of other populations.

7. A.I. will reason like humans do 

Smart algorithms will indeed be able to execute tasks and fulfil roles assigned to them, but they will not reason like humans do. This is because they don’t possess consciousness and won’t understand human reasoning when it comes to healthcare.

This is demonstrated by several studies on adversarial attacks on A.I.-based algorithms. By tweaking images with minimal differences to the human eye, the software misclassify diagnoses which humans wouldn’t. Such simple tricks that can greatly influence A.I. but not humans show the importance of human reasoning that is absent from A.I.

Preparing for the age of A.I.

With progress in the A.I. field, we will surely come across even more applications of the technology in healthcare. And these developments will further highlight what we can’t expect of these software. 

As such, to prepare for the age of A.I., it will become increasingly important to better understand the technology and how it “thinks.” Whether it is learning a programming language or playing games like chess or Go, you will be better prepared to tackle upcoming A.I.-related issues when you better understand the language of A.I., which is the language of anticipation. 

We also invite you to dive deeper into the world of A.I. in healthcare by getting a copy of our e-book dedicated to the subject. We designed it as a guide for the era of human-machine collaboration. 

Additionally, The Medical Futurist Institute recently published two studies in the prestigious npj Digital Medicine journal. The first paper raises the importance of clearer regulations over medical A.I., while the second paper offers a concise guide to help medical professionals in better understanding the basics of A.I. and its potentials in medicine. Both are freely accessible in open-access and we hope you’ll find them useful!

Dr. Bertalan Mesko, PhD is The Medical Futurist and Director of The Medical Futurist Institute analyzing how science fiction technologies can become reality in medicine and healthcare. As a geek physician with a PhD in genomics, he is a keynote speaker and an Amazon Top 100 author.

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