As an opener TLDR: AI has its positives and negatives, and those vary with each profession. My experience is below.
My father and brothers are construction plumbers. They could care less.
I am a radiologist. The infancy of AI has been in our practice for years with CAD (computer aided detection) in mammography for years. It was largely semi ignored and seen as a secondary check [as a caveat I am not a mammographer]. The vast majority of things CAD picks up are not significant.
Fast forward. In the past year our practice has implemented top of the line AI programs to detect pulmonary emboli (life threatening blood clots in the lungs), intracranial bleeds, and rib fractures. Our group is pretty well advanced with the implementation of these these things relative to the majority of the country. We will be utilizing an AI program in the next few months to improve our sub specialty staffing (non clinical). the vast majority of the clinical findings would be picked up by our docs but when the AI picks it up we've got it programmed to shoot an alert to read it. Good for patient care.
Maybe within 10 years AI will replace standard diagnostic radiology and will certainly replace poorly trained radiologists. But, human disease is extremely complex and I don't imagine a half decent hospital and/or outpatient imaging practice replacing smart humans with AI. Like everything in medicine there's a lot of judgement and experience involved in interpretation. Most recent example I saw tonight: a chronically inflamed contained appendix rupture that looks looks very much like a colon cancer at the base of the cecum.
If medicine goes further socialist the cheaper AI-only option will be chosen as the new standard of care and quality care be damned. There's a reason why "standard of care" is used instead of best care. A standard is easier to adjust. The elites will get quality care (with real reads from a quality radiologist…appropriate treatment..etc) while the majority of the populace is thrown into substandard care (example: the machine said you advanced cancer which the government won't pay to treat while you die of sepsis from the misdiagnosed ruptured appendix). This kind of thing is already happening in socialist and semi socialist European countries and it will get worse.
Interesting times indeed. I do a lot of imaging guided procedures so a good bit of my work won't be replaced unless Medicare and/or insurance stops paying for it (already happening), but I don't see how the expertise and judgment of a smart well trained diagnostic radiologist will ever be replaced.
My biggest fear right now is that training programs (residencies and fellowships) will implement these programs. It will encourage laziness and apathy in newly trained doctors.
Interesting times indeed.
"I dont even have a phone" Roky Erickson