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0 pointsgremlinsinc7y ago0 comments

I have very high hopes for ai/automation. Maybe not 10 years, but can you be sure 20 years is safe? What if your kid started med school in 10 years, and by the time they get through residency they could be replaced by robots? It's a possibility...

I think specific 'parts' of medicine are more adaptable to change... PCP's could be 'mostly' automated. I'm not saying it'll be 100%, but say 20% stay around for a decade or two as management overseeing the robotic slaves -- making sure they have > levels of care and lower death rates than a human would by a magnitude big enough to avoid lawsuits.

There's not a job in sight that can't someday be done better by a robot. Even software developer. I don't know when, I just know on a long enough timeline it's almost inevitable.

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jazoom7y ago· 2 in thread

> can you be sure 20 years is safe?

I think you're looking at this all wrong. If robots replace me then that means the robots are safer than I am and do a better job. That's awesome. By the time robots have replaced me, they would have long ago replaced accountants and lawyers. We'd be living in a super efficient world. The human element is extremely important in medicine/surgery so we won't be replaced for a little longer. For a long time it'll be there to help us and make our jobs easier.

It's like another industrial revolution where we all have more time to... not work.

I am not defined by my career.

But... I don't see this happening even in the next 20 years. We can't even yet trust cars to drive forward, back, left and right safely with strict rules, markings and signage to guide them.

gremlinsincOP7y ago

Not to undermine what you do, or what any doctor does, I honestly believe driving a car to be something that's tougher than surgery (for a robot). Now of course, when I say 20 years, I think by then we'll have robots who can do a number of 'routine' surgeries at least. Maybe each robot is specialized and can only do 1 surgery but there's 15 different types of robots who all have mastered 1 surgery.

When performing a surgery, I'm sure you need to think on your feet a bit, but how many scenarios can you think of that might happen in a surgery ? Knick a blood vessel, throw a blood clot, drop a tool in the patient, unforseen bleeder/hemorrhage, alergy to drug, etc... I'm sure there's quite a list...

How many scenarios can happen in a driving situation - magnitudes more than a surgery, because a surgery is in an isolated room and controlled environment. Driving is not. On the road you need to worry about:

* Pedestrians from front, and sides.

* Animals from all angles.

* Rain/Snow. Hydroplaning.

* Traffic construction.

* Other idiots on the road.

* Helicopter Crash.

* Police Chase.

* Sheep stuck in the road.

* Forest fires. (Obey the speed limit or floor it to escape?)

* Billing (If you're an uber ai car).

* Drivers that are angry, sad, happy, distracted, having a medical emergency, falling asleep.

* Natural disasters like an earthquake.

* Bad directions.

* Loss of internet/connectivity.

* Running out of gas/electric.

* Curves in the road.

* Signs that could be permanent or temporary.

* Obeying traffic laws.

* Being aggressive when needed to take a lane.

* Be courteous and move over for faster traffic passing on the left.

* Sensor failures and malfunctions.

* Tire blowout.

My point is it's a LOT more than just forward/back/left/right, if you had an enclosed building w/ a driving track, and could control who was in the room, where they were standing, what their jobs were, before the car took off, then you mitigate MANY of the issues that self-driving cars have, and the technology as it exists today is good enough for that scenario.

Personally though I see us (hopefully) moving towards a post-scarcity society, sort of like Wall-e, but hopefully without the laziness (I'm sure we can find fulfillment in other ways) -- Research for instance will be a hobby instead of career because people --especially scientists will always have curiosity pushing them forward.

If we survive global warming, the next 100 years is going to be unfathomably different from the last 100...

jazoom7y ago

Maybe I should mention I perform surgery on awake patients. What happens when the patient gives me feedback? I have to negotiate with them and accommodate them. What about when the surgeon communicates with the assistants/nurses? What about with the anesthetist? What if the power goes out? What about the discussion with the patient/family when things don't go as planned? What about deciding with the patient if surgery is even appropriate in the first place? Will a robot be a good judge of when it's important to ignore what the patient is saying?

You know about driving because you do it. It makes sense you think medicine/surgery is simple, since you've never done it.

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