MDs: Get Ready to Change with AI

There are the believers in augmented medicine, with physicians and machines working hand in hand and improving care and patient outcomes. And there are the stalwarts who see machines taking over the tasks of mankind. Period.

“AI will support MDs in their work and replace them…. The professions need to change. Technology may force them to.” That is the prediction of father and son authors who penned a Harvard Business Review piece, “Technology Will Replace Many Doctors, Lawyers, and Other Professionals.”

Author Richard Susskind is chairman of the Advisory Board of the Oxford Internet Institute and IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and his son Daniel Susskind is an economics fellow at the University of Oxford’s Balliol College. Here is how they see it. “Faced with the claim that AI and robots are poised to replace most of today’s workforce, most mainstream professionals—doctors, lawyers, accountants, and so on—believe they will emerge largely unscathed…. We expect that within decades the traditional professions will be dismantled, leaving most, but not all, professionals to be replaced by less-expert people, new types of experts, and high-performing systems.”