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This is like saying that self-driving cars won't ever become a thing because someone behind the wheel needs to be to blame. The article cites AI systems that th
by kbos87 1y ago
This is like saying that self-driving cars won't ever become a thing because someone behind the wheel needs to be to blame. The article cites AI systems that the FDA already has cleared to operate without a physicians' validation.
- CSSer 1y agoI'm curious how many people would want a second opinion (from a human) if they're presented with a bad discovery from a radiological exam and are then told it was fully automated. I have to admit if my life were on the line I might be that Karen.
- rogerrogerr 1y agoA bad discovery probably means your exam will be read by someone qualified, like the surgeon/doctor tasked with correcting it. False negatives are far more problematic.
- CSSer 1y agoAh, you're right. Something else I'm curious about with these systems is how they'll affect difficulty level. If AI handles the majority of easy cases, and radiologists are already at capacity, so they crack if the only cases they evaluate are now moderately to extraordinarily difficult?
- malfist 1y agoThe problem is, you don't know beforehand if it's a hard case or not. A hard to spot tumor is an easy negative result with high confidence by an AI
- T-800Rad 1y agoLet's look at mammography, since that is one of the easier imaging exams to evaluate. Studies have shown that AI can successfully identify more than 50% of cases as "normal" that do not require a human to view the case. If group started using that, the number of interpreted cases would drop in half although twice as many would be normal. Generalizing to CT of the abdomen and pelvis and other studies, assuming AI can identify a sub population of normal scans that do not have to be seen by a radiologist, the volume of work will decline. However, the percentage of complicated cases will go up. Easy, normal cases will not be supplementing the Radiologist income the way it has in the past. Of course, all this depends upon who owns the AI identifying normal studies. Certainly, hospitals or even packs companies would love to own that and generate that income from interpreting the normal studies. AI software has been slow to be adopted, largely because cases still have to be seen by a radiologist, and the malpractice issue has not been resolved. Expect rapid changes in the field once malpractice solutions exist.
- close04 1y agoFrom my experience the best person to read these images is the medical imaging expert. The doctor who treats the underlying issue is qualified but it's not their core competence. They'll check of course but I don't think they generally have a strong basis to override the imaging expert. If it's something serious enough a patient getting bad news will probably want a second opinion no matter who gave them the first one.
- gervwyk 1y agoI willing to bet every one here has a relative or friend who at some point got a false negative from a doctor.. Just like drivers that have made accidents.. Core problem is how to go about centralizing liability.. or not.
- borroka 1y agoBut since we don't know where those false negatives are, we want radiologists. I remember a funny question that my non-technical colleagues asked me during the presentation of some ML predictions. They asked me, “How wrong is this prediction?” And I replied that if I knew, I would have made the prediction correct. Errors are estimated on a test data set, either overall or broken down by groups. The technological advances have supported medical professionals so far, but not substituted them: they have allowed medical professionals to do more and better.
- mike_ivanov 1y agoSelf-care is being Karen since when?
- _9ptr 1y ago"Cancer? Me? I'd like to speak to your manager!"
- ponector 1y agoIn reality it's always a good decision to seek a second independent assessment in case of diagnosis of severe illness. People makes mistakes all the time, you don't want to be the one affected by their mistake.
- CSSer 1y agoIt's not. I was trying to evoke a world where it's become so common place that you're a nuisance if you're one of those people who questions it.
- incone123 1y agoNeed to work on the comedic delivery in written form because you just came off as leaning on a stereotype
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- captainkrtek 1y agoId be more concerned about the false negative. My report says nothing found? Sounds great, do I bother getting a 2nd opinion?
- jayknight 1y agoYou pay extra for a doctor's opinion. Probably not covered by insurance.
- ares623 1y agoThat's horrific. You pay insurance to have ChatGPT make the diagnosis. But you still need to pay out of pocket anyway. Because of that, I am 100% confident this will become reality. It is too good to pass up.
- CSSer 1y agoI mean, we already have deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums. If anything, this kind of policy could align with that because it's prophylactic. We can ensure we maximize the amount we retrieve from you before care kicks in this way. Yeah, it tracks.
- falcor84 1y agoEarly intervention is generally significantly cheaper, so insurers have an interest in doing sufficiently good diagnosis to avoid unnecessary late and costly interventions.
- Workaccount2 1y agoPeople will flock to "AI medical" insurance that costs $50/mo and lets you see whatever AI specialist you want whenever you want.
- captainkrtek 1y agoThink a problem here is the sycophantic nature. If I’m a hypochondriac, and I have some new onset symptoms, and I prompt some LLM about what I’m feeling and what I suspect, I worry it’ll likely positively reinforce a diagnosis I’m seeking.
- tw04 1y ago> This is like saying that self-driving cars won't ever become a thing because someone behind the wheel needs to be to blame. Which is literally the case so far. No manufacturer has shown any willingness to take on the liability of self driving at any scale to date. Waymo has what? 700 cars on the road with the finances and lawyers of Google backing it. Let me know when the bean counters sign off on fleets in the millions of vehicles.
- varenc 1y ago> Waymo has what? 700 cars on the road ... They have over 2000 on the road and are growing: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/31/techcrunch-mobility-a-new-speed-bump-for-ev-owners-and-waymos-robotaxi-fleet-surpasses-2000/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/31/techcrunch-mobility-a-new-... Of course there's 200M+ personal vehicles registered in the US.
- baobun 1y ago(brainfart)
- cowsandmilk 1y ago2000 is only 1 of every 100,000
- kevin_thibedeau 1y agoOperating in carefully selected urban locations with no severe weather. They are nowhere close to general purpose FSD.
- UltraSane 1y agoTesla still hasn't accepted liability for crashes caused by FSD. They in fact fight any such claims in court very vigorously.
- avh02 1y agoTesla isn't the north star here
- otterley 1y agoThey have settled out of court in every single case. None has gone to trial. This suggests that the company is afraid not only of the amount of damages that could be awarded by a jury, but also legal precedent that holds them or other manufacturers liable for injuries caused by FSD failures.
- UltraSane 1y agohttps://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tesla-autopilot-crash-trial-verdict-partly-liable-rcna222344 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tesla-autopilot-crash-t... Tesla hit with $243 million in damages after jury finds its Autopilot feature contributed to fatal crash The verdict follows a three-week trial that threw a spotlight on how Tesla and CEO Elon Musk have marketed their driver-assistance software.
- otterley 1y agoI stand corrected, thank you!
- aprilthird2021 1y agoThe FDA can clear whatever they want. A malpractice lawyer WILL sue and WILL win whenever an AI mistake slips through and no human was in the loop to fix the issue. It's the same way that we can save time and money if we just don't wash our hands when cooking food. Sure it's true. But someone WILL get sick and we WILL get in trouble for it
- the_real_cher 1y agoyeah but at some point the technology will be sufficient and it will be cheaper to pay the rare $2 million malpractice suit then a team of $500,000/yr radiologists theres an MBA salivating over that presntation
- aprilthird2021 1y agoIt won't be because your insurance rate will go up. Also $2M is absurdly absurdly low for a successful medical malpractice suit
- fkyoureadthedoc 1y agoWhat's the difference in the lawsuit scenario if a doctor messes up? If the AI is the same or better error rate than a human, then insurance for it should be cheaper. If there's no regulatory blocks, then I don't see how it doesn't ultimately just become a cost comparison.
- lurk2 1y ago> What's the difference in the lawsuit scenario if a doctor messes up? Scale. Doctors and taxi drivers represent several points of limited liability, whereas an AI would be treating (and thus liable for) all patients. If a hospital treats one hundred patients with ten doctors, and one doctor is negligent, then his patients might sue him; some patients seeing other doctors might sue the hospital if they see his hiring as indicative of broader institutional neglect, but they’d have to prove this in a lawsuit. If this happened with a software-based classifier being used at every major hospital, you’re talking about a class action lawsuit including every possible person who was ever misdiagnosed by the software; it’s a much more obvious candidate for a class action because the software company has more money and it was the same thing happening every time, whereas a doctor’s neglect or incompetence is not necessarily indicative of broader neglect or incompetence at an institutional level. > If there's no regulatory blocks, then I don't see how it doesn't ultimately just become a cost comparison. To make a fair comparison you’d have to look at how many more people are getting successful interventions due to the AI decreasing the cost of diagnosis.
- constantcrying 1y agoMedicine does not work like traffic. There is no reason for a human to care whether the other car is being driven by a machine. Medicine is existential. The job of a doctor is not to look at data, give a diagnosis and leave. A crucial function of practicing doctors is communication and human interaction with their patients. When your life is on the line (and frankly, even if it isn't), you do not want to talk to an LLM. At minimum you expect that another human can explain to you what is wrong with you and what options there are for you.
- philipallstar 1y agoThere's some sort of category error here. Not every doctor is that type of doctor. A radiologist could be a remote interpretation service staffed by humans or by AI, just as sending off blood for a blood test is done in a laboratory.
- ACCount37 1y agoSo, you need a moral support human? Like a big plushie, but more alive?
- constantcrying 1y agoWhat is the point of the snark? If you are going to find out that you are dying within a year, do you want to get that as an E-Mail?
- ACCount37 1y agoThe point is: I don't see "emotional support" as a vital part of the job of a radiologist.
- kashunstva 1y agoYou know, for most humans, empathy is a thing; all the more so when facing known or suspected health situations. Good on those who have transcended that need. I guess.
- victorbjorklund 1y ago
- emptyfile 1y ago[dead]
- alexpotato 1y agoThis is essentially what's happened with airliners. Planes can land themselves with zero human intervention in all kinds of weather conditions and operating environments. In fact, there was a documentary where the plane landed so precisely that you could hear the tires hitting the center lane marker as it landed and then taxied. Yet we STILL have pilots as a "last line of defense" in case something goes wrong.
- victorbjorklund 1y agoOne difference there would be that the cost of the pilots is tiny vs the rest that goes into a flight. But I would bet that the cost of the doctor is a bigger % of the process of getting an x-ray.
- frenchman_in_ny 1y agoNo - planes cannot "land themselves with zero human intervention" (...). A CAT III autoland on commercial airliners requires a ton of manual setting of systems and certificated aircraft and runways in order to "land themselves" [0][1]. I'm not fully up to speed on the Autonomi / Garmin Autoland implementation found today on Cirrus and other aircraft -- but it's not for "everyday" use for landings. [0] https://pilotinstitute.com/can-an-airplane-land-itself/ https://pilotinstitute.com/can-an-airplane-land-itself/ [1] https://askthepilot.com/questionanswers/automation-myths/ https://askthepilot.com/questionanswers/automation-myths/
- rkomorn 1y agoNot only that but they are even less capable of taking off on their own (see the work done by Airbus' ATTOL project [0] on what some of the more recent successes are). So I'm not sure what "planes can land on their own" gets us anyway even if autopilot on modern airliners can do an awful lot on their own (including following flight plans in ways that are more advanced than before). The Garmin Autoland basically announces "my pilot is incapacitated and the plane is going to land itself at <insert a nearby runway>" without asking for landing clearance (which is very cool in and of itself but nowhere near what anyone would consider autonomous). [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TIBeso4abU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TIBeso4abU (among other things, but this video is arguably the most fun one) Edit: and yes maybe the "pilots are basically superfluous now" misconception is a pet peeve for me (and I'm guessing parent as well)
- trueismywork 1y agoAt the end of day, there's a decision needs to be made and decisions have consequences. And in our current society, there are only one way we know about how to make sure that the decision is taken with sufficient humanity: by putting a human to be responsible for making that decision.
- hliyan 1y agoVery questionable reasoning: using a traffic analogy to argue against medical reality.