I'd say on the contrary, the problem with experts is that they are so expensive to train and so rare. It is easier to collect data, train the AI and then equip doctors all over the world with it than to have thousands of experts in that particular field.
A doctor that treats patients all day long doesn't have time to keep up with the research and state of the art. A researcher that is on the cutting edge of medicine doesn't have time to treat the patients. We need to equip doctors with AIs to keep them up to date with the best practices.
- there is a wide market that could justify large investments in AI
With this combination, yeah I can see AI being used. In fact medecine is one of the few professions that never industrialised. But there are loads of other professions where either or none of the conditions above are met.
If you are talking about a doctor specialised in a rare disease, where there is very little data, and very few patients to cure, how do you think AI will replace that?
> If you are talking about a doctor specialised in a rare disease, where there is very little data, and very few patients to cure, how do you think AI will replace that?
Well, since transfer learning is a thing, you would start with a general purpose medical system and then train it on what little data you do have on the rare disease to produce an appropriate model (which isn't too different from the way a human expert is produced). In fact, I would assume that the first such systems will be created and used by the researchers focusing on rare diseases.
Yes, experts will use AI to build better tools that will be accessible via computer and by less-expert physicians to augment their skill base in diagnosis. Trying to fully automate the physician promises to be so difficult and expensive (and legally fraught) that the value it adds will be nowhere near worth the investment. No doubt a few direct-to-patient AI-based apps and services will arise in this space, and maybe AI will allow generalists will extend their reach further into the space of specialists. But robot doctors will remain the stuff of fantasy for many decades yet, I suspect.
A doctor that treats patients all day long doesn't have time to keep up with the research and state of the art. A researcher that is on the cutting edge of medicine doesn't have time to treat the patients. We need to equip doctors with AIs to keep them up to date with the best practices.