Elon Musk, a name synonymous with technological advances, has once again emphasized the imminent role of robotics in the healthcare field. He offered his forecast in reaction to a social media update about a Medtronic, a medical technology company that has already incorporated robots in over a hundred operations, including procedures on prostates, kidneys, and bladders. Musk, ever confident, stated the arrival of robots in the operating room could land us in a world where machinery will outperform not just the competent, but also the best human surgeons in approximately five years. Referencing Neuralink, the brain-machine interface pioneer, he noted how it was necessary to resort to robots for precise brain-computer electrode placements — a feat impossible for human hands.
The wealthiest man on the planet is no stranger to contending the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in reshaping the healthcare landscape. Earlier this year, he purported that Grok, an AI chatbot developed by his company, could pose as a preliminary diagnostic aid for medical conditions. However, such claims often appear a notch above current capabilities. In response to a user query, the chatbot commented, ‘I’m not equipped to diagnose medical injuries, but I can offer general resources or advise where professional medical help can be sought’. It was quick to clarify that a healthcare expert should be the primary point of contact for proper diagnosis and treatment strategies.
But Musk isn’t alone on the road to leveraging AI for replacing conventional medical practitioners. Recently, many major tech firms have shown increasing interest in demonstrating the utility of AI in healthcare settings. OpenAI, an AI research lab, was quick to share tales about health issues being solved by end users through interactions with its chatbot, ChatGPT. Taking AI’s potential utility a step further, Microsoft unveiled a newly developed tool – a technological aid for diagnosing rare diseases.
Despite such promising developments, there remains an unspoken caution about the incorporation of AI in healthcare. Tech giants frequently highlight the opportunities AI could bring, but often neglect the potential consequences of this new frontier. The AI modalities championed by large-scale language models (LLMs) are still displaying hints of ‘hallucination’, where they confidently fabricate information. Recently, it was indicated that some newer models are even more prone to hallucination.
The implications of AI in healthcare are not limited to writing or programming tasks. It is a field where misinterpretation or ‘hallucination’ holds life-threatening consequences. Misdiagnosis by an AI tool could mean a difference between survival and expiration for a patient. Added to this is the ambiguity in regulatory boundaries, turning accountability in-case of failures into a nebulous concept.