Featured image retrieved from developer.ibm.com
You might know IBM’s supercomputer Watson for being the world Jeopardy! champion. Still dubbed a “question answering machine” in 2011, nowadays the computer went to medical school to become the world’s best diagnostician: Just a few years ago Watson was already about 42% better at diagnosing illnesses and prescribing effective treatments than its human counterparts. And with the Watson only costing $189 versus $497 for a human doctor for the same result, is it time to replace your physician now?
Before answering that question, let us first take a look at what makes Watson so suitable to replace a human doctor. Andrew McAfee, a research scientist at MIT, wrote about the following aspects on his blog:
- It is based on all available knowledge: theoretically Watson could have access to all medical literature and databases with medical imagery such as X-ray images and the like, plus all other information sources that could be of use in diagnosing. Additionally, the best thing is that Watson can access these sources at any time while never forgetting or overlooking anything.
- It is consistent: Watson always reports the same diagnosis with the same inputs. Besides, Watson is never sick, upset, or sleep deprived. What is more is that this computer also knows what it does not know : in case of a low confidence in its own diagnosis Watson will report and call in a human to take over.
- It is accessible: Watson has low marginal costs. The initial investment to build and train Watson is still high, yet once functioning each diagnosis is less expensive than when performed by a medical professional. Besides, Watson can be accessed from anywhere in the world by using a computer or mobile phone.
Now that we have seen the benefits of Watson, it is probably a good idea to increase the computer’s involvement in diagnosing. However, according to Gerard Smit, chief intelligence officer at IBM, Watson will never replace a human doctor: it has merely been designed to enhance the interaction between man and machine (KIJK, April 2016, p. 20). That is probably the right answer to the question whether to fully replace your doctor (already) as Watson is (still) lacking certain features such as the social aspects of consulting a physician.
What are your thoughts about being diagnosed by a computer?
References
Bennett, C. C., & Hauser, K. (2013). Artificial intelligence framework for simulating clinical decision-making: A Markov decision process approach. Artificial intelligence in medicine, 57(1), 9-19.
Dvorksy, G. (2013). Computers are better at diagnosing and treating patients than doctors. Gizmodo. Retrieved 24 September 2016, from http://io9.gizmodo.com/5983991/computers-are-better-at-diagnosing-and-treating-patients-than-doctors
Markoff, J. (2011). Computer Wins on ‘Jeopardy!’: Trivial, It’s Not. The New York Times. Retrieved 24 September 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/science/17jeopardy-watson.html
McAfee, A. (2011). Dr. Watson, Please Report to the Health Care System. Andrew McAfee. Retrieved from http://andrewmcafee.org/2011/03/mcafee-watson-ibm-healthcare-verghese/
Tangerman, H. (2016, April). De computer leert denken [The computer learns to think]. KIJK, 4, 14-23.
Interesting reads
https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/07/ibms-watson-ai-saved-a-woman-from-leukemia/
https://www.inverse.com/article/13630-what-has-ibm-watson-been-up-to-since-winning-jeopardy-5-years-ago
http://www.ibm.com/watson/what-is-watson.html
