[rscho]

Almost all specialties do various technical procedures that only them really know how to do. The extreme is psychoanalytic psychiatry, which are the only ones really doing nothing with their hands (yes, interventional psychiatry is a thing...). Now, you could argue that 'yes, but most of the times it's done by techs/nurses'. Well, no. When things go south, and in all places where there is noone else to do the stuff (of which there are many) docs are on their own.

Regarding surgery, I expect it to be one of the easiest procedures to automate, actually (still quite hard, obviously). Because surgery is the only case where there's always advanced imaging available beforehand, and the environment is relatively fixed (OR).

[menaerus]

Why do you think medical science wrt complexity is any different than applied math, which computer science essentially is? People already can use LLMs to assist them in diagnosing health issues so why would it be hard to believe that the doctors won't be using the same kind of assistance soon too?

[rscho]

> Why do you think medical science wrt complexity is any different than applied math

I don't think I wrote that.

Doctors already use tech assistance. I just pointed out that while we've got efficient robots for applied math, we don't have those as agents in the physical world. People who do blue collar jobs are less replaceable. Well, believe it or not, but most doctors are actually blue collar workers.

[menaerus]

You sort of implied that with your replies across the thread. And since AI already replaced part of the CS, I was wondering why do you think this would not be the case with doctors. I'm not sure I agree it's a blue collar profession. I can easily see diagnostics being replaced with AI models.

[rscho]

I never wanted to imply that. But here, people frequently assume that because that's what they're used to. Diagnosis is the tip of the iceberg. Most people here aren't sick, so diagnostics are their only focus. If they get ill, they want a diagnosis. But many people are chronically ill already, and doctors spend most of their time treating, not diagnosing. Treating people is made in good part of technical procedures and practical assessments, and you need doctors for that because robots are still far behind for that kind of stuff. People actually have a completely skewed view of what a doctor is.

[menaerus]

> People actually have a completely skewed view of what a doctor is.

It could be but treating patients also requires continuous diagnostics, result comprehension, and final assessment so this is certainly the part where AI could play the crucial role.

I don't think anyone thinking of the AI consequences on medicine is arguing that it will replace manual labor such as procedure executions or psychological support. This is obviously not possible so when I see people talking about the "AI in medicine" I read that as mostly complementing the existing work with new technology.