[teknover]

"He noted that treatment guidelines for every metastatic lung cancer patient worldwide recently changed in the course of one week after a research presentation at a cancer conference."

Isn't this a good thing then that there's a digital assistant to ensure doctors are up-to-date and provide the right treatment plans?

[rscho]

A digital assistant that signals guideline changes does not require advanced technology. This reflects failure of the medical system, more than anything else. Plus, the fact that guidelines change suddenly after some conference should tell you that treatment in the case depicted here is defined entirely on expert opinion. AI should seek to do better than just following expert opinion. Conclusion: the Watson system is a failure.

[hacker_9]

Of course, but in the very next sentence the doctor says the system stays out of date for quite a while. That's probably because they need an engineer to find all the old information and remove it, then input all the new information in whatever standard Watson requires.