[gamegoblin]

Obviously, I agree replacing doctors is a terrible idea.

That said, in the last 5 years I have broken an ankle in a rock climbing accident, and gotten a herniated disk in my neck from wrestling. Both times, medical professionals misdiagnosed me for months (both times until I eventually found a doctor who would refer me for an MRI which proved the issue in both cases). This resulted in a lot of undue suffering and increased damage.

In both cases, I explained the situation and symptoms to GPT3 (this is before ChatGPT was released), and it correctly diagnosed the issue in both circumstances, down to the exact bone I most likely fractured in my ankle (talus), and down to the exact vertebrae I was likely herniated in my neck (C6-C7).

Now, I "consult" GPT before going to the doctor.

[retrac]

I think this may end up being the most powerful application of GPT. While I've been using it for coding, most of it is high level "what are the trade-offs?" kind of thinking and very little actual code.

A person with some background and sufficient general knowledge, but who is a non-expert on a topic, can dive into a topic and allow the AI to handle most of the detail work. What do I need to know to understand this? It falls out naturally from the exploration of the topic, in a faster and more integrated way compared to chasing down articles and definitions.

It's like having a research assistant, that is an expert that has read everything ever published about the topic, and that is also infinitely patient. Of course, it's also prone to bouts of being confidently incorrect, and it can't actually reason, or think up anything new. That may seem like a serious limitation, but it also describes many of my college professors, and they still taught me plenty. ;)

[ilaksh]

I think ChatGPT is most similar to text-davinci-003 which does have gaps in it's knowledge which it can be stubborn about but code-davinci-002 has fewer gaps and can be more reasonable about requests. It's sometimes gets stuck in a loop though and is in beta with very limited capacity. Point being ChatGPT is the not quite best programming model.

[lowbloodsugar]

I watched a show in the 80s about expert systems essentially playing 20 questions with a patient (via a human typing assistant) and the computer was already more accurate than doctors in a study. The fucking 80s.

Doctors have a very powerful Union. They don’t call it a union, but it’s a union.

[napier]

Perhaps it's not going to be about replacing doctors, it's about remembering everything they know in aggregate and distributing it wholesale to augment their work along with healthcare provision in general, while increasing access inclusiveness by empowering patients. Has the potential to be most transformative in parts of the world and socioeconomic stratums/zones where internet connected smartphones are widespread, but timely, inclusive and affordable healthcare is not.