I am not a doctor (medical, or otherwise). I am a cleric with clinical training and forty-plus years of parish experience. I am also a researcher dedicated to studying postmodernism. This includes considering the place of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics in society.
Before you glance away, thinking this is fluff or irrelevant, take a moment for “deep reading.” This is an article rooted in my experiences, research, and reflections. Please do not fall into the trap of our evolving short attention span and move on. Take a few minutes to read and think. In our postmodern society we are constantly overloaded, overstressed, overwhelmed, and tend to “scan and skim” rather than devoting effort to read beyond surface content and delve into the context of the material. We may read enough to get a gist of an article, journal, or book and then stop. We are impatient because we have dozens of other tasks in front of us.
Facets of postmodern society, particularly in the medical world, are often enabled by AI models. These models are fed by algorithms, autocorrections, and auto-suggestions, and becomes an ally, which may leave us thinking in terms of Lord Acton’s profound image of absolutes who, in a 1887 letter to an Anglican bishop, wrote “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” AI is becoming a vastly powerful ally tool in the medical community. Does that mean we are allowing or downloading previous human activity to a machine? The answer is yes, but we should be aware of potential consequences.
AI and robotics in surgery and inpatient treatment are increasingly part of our reality. As an clear example we see offices send emails, texts, or phone calls to “nudge” people into remember their appointments, or tracks inventory for operating rooms, etc. Based on prior successes, we have increased expectations of what AI and robotics can provide. Our postmodern peculiarities drive us towards impatience, and instant gratification, and we want perfect care and perfect results in ten minutes. This puts pressure on all levels of the medical community.
In our consumer-driven lives we may become irritable with those providing medical care. One recent article notes:
“Violence against physicians is a serious problem worldwide and is increasing day by day. For this reason, physicians have difficulty fulfilling their duties, are exhausted, migrate abroad, or move to the private sector. As a result, it becomes challenging to maintain healthcare services in the public sector.”1 Doctors feel the pinch from a demanding public and become impatient also. Canadian psychiatrists Robert Maunder and Jonathan Hunter wrote that doctors once waited 18 seconds before they interrupted a patient’s story. This duration has now shortened to about 11 seconds.2
Overloaded schedules, mountains of paperwork, numerous patients, an aging population with greater needs, and too few doctors are all pushing us to a point where AI is on the road to greater use in medical care. Financial restrictions by governments and hospital boards have played a part to limit staff and costs, and to look to AI. You may not agree with this statement, but one cannot deny we are on that path!
One evolving use of AI is that we may even need fewer human doctors and staff. Today we have live doctors on video screens, but perhaps in a couple of years we may see AI-powered doctors, where the doctor we see on screen is an AI-generated face. Given our consumer need for gratification, we might be able to pick the “face” of the doctor we desire. We may choose to see from a selection of television characters such as Dr. Grey (Ellen Pompeo), Dr. Doug Ross (George Clooney), or Tom Cruise as an animated doctor. Seniors may choose to see Dr. Ben Casey (Vince Edwards), or Dr. Kildare (Richard Chamberlain). Gen X folks may select Dr. Doogie Howser (Neil Patrick Harris), or Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Hightower). Some may choose the grumpy condescending Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie).
To continue this currently absurd satire each of these AI-manufactured faces could offer medical advice from the whole world’s complete, combined, and documented medical records. In other words, in nanoseconds they can access all the procedures – pro and con – that seemingly address the specific patient before them. In time could “big brother” exist? Time will tell. In three words, AI would have “total evidence awareness.” In this possible AI scenario, there may be robotics in the room with the manufactured video doctor. These robots may be programmed to undertake many tasks such as drawing blood, checking blood pressure, providing x-rays, or more. Perhaps in a decade or two, they might do minor surgery. We should also consider if medical care should be driven by consumer demands or by medical necessity. AI can possibly assist the medical world by collecting, and, perhaps at the next step of development discern incredible amounts of data, churning it into useful information, and then into knowledge. Often, we assume that wisdom naturally flows from knowledge. Unfortunately, this is not always true. We are blessed that AI and robotics may someday in the distant future, this priestly futurist writes, may offer wisdom and create diagnoses.
In our impatient world, we need to learn patience. We need patience with others and patience with ourselves. In our instant gratification world, we need to take time to look for the bigger picture and to wait in anticipation for results. Perhaps if we find a balance between AI, algorithms, robotics, self-awareness, and inward journeying we may move forward in healthy partnerships.
No AI was used to write or re-write this article. AI was used to help with grammatical errors. A human medical author greatly added insights and proofreading to this piece.
References
- Yücel Özden, K.B., Sarıca Çevik, H,, Asenova, R., Ungan, M. (2024). Guardians of health under fire: Understanding and combating violence against doctors. Aten Primaria. 2024 Sep;56(9):102944. doi: 10.1016/j.aprim.2024.102944. Epub 2024 Apr 27. PMID: 38678853; PMCID: PMC11066614. Retrieved October 10, 2024.
- Maunder, J., Hunter, J. (2021). Damaged: Childhood Trauma Adult Illness, and the Need for a Health Care Revolution. Toronto: University of Toronto Press., p. 62.
Views and opinions expressed by authors and editors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.
