Mohamed Moataz
In the last century, Artificial Intelligence has undergone massive, remarkable and rapid advancements across all fields, especially in Medicine. But every new world has its advantages and disadvantages, with its introduction in our life - already underway – coupled with a massive gap in acknowledging the power in our hands.
Let us first examine what Artificial Intelligence is all about? AI, as it is often abbreviated, is the development of computer systems to be able to perform tasks that normally require human complex intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision making and Language translation.
In modern Medicine, AI has expanded to be included in the diagnosis and treatment of physical and psychiatric conditions. In Neuroscience, for example, a deep-learning algorithm used MRI scans of the brains of infants ranging from 6 to 12 months old to predict the diagnosis of Autism in individual high-risk children at 24 months with a positive predictive value of 81% , which is a very accurate prediction.
Meanwhile in psychiatry, researchers at the Vanderbilt University Medical Centre created machine-learning algorithms that achieved 80% - 90% accuracy when predicting the risk of a suicide attempt within the next 2 years and a more impressive 92% accuracy within the next week. These astonishing results were achieved by applying machine learning to patients' Electronic Health Records.
Treatment wise, doctors were able to achieve a robotic surgery breakthrough in 2016, when smart surgical robots stitched up a pig's small intestine without the need for human intervention.
More impressively, a robot dentist in China was able to carry out the world's first successful autonomous implant surgery by fitting two new teeth into a woman's mouth last year, again without any human intervention.
However, how confident can we be when trusting AI with our lives? Although AI has improved and is still improving our life remarkably, it still faces some obstacles in convincing people of its innocence.
One of the concerns raised is the issue of legal liability. If a medical error occurs, who is held liable? A robot surgeon is not a legal entity, so who should the patient hold liable and maybe sue? The owner, The programmer, The manufacturer or someone else ?
Beyond hurdles in the medical field, a Japanese insurance firm replaced 34 employees with an AI system, believing it will increase productivity by 30% and see a return on its investment in less than 2 years .
Is AI taking our role in life? Can robots live on their own without the need for humans? Can they overthrow us?
In Conclusion, artificial intelligence continues to enhance and refine the quality of our life but raises eyebrows when it comes to many issues that humans are often held accountable for.
As doctors, it threatens our role in life but can still offer much needed help in many surgical operations. Therefore, it is up to us to take the reins and control how much involvement we require of it before it is too late.
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