Expert systems have been able to diagnose many illnesses better than doctors for decades but they have replaced precisely zero doctors for many reasons, but the biggest is that they can’t accept liability for their recommendations.

No company will ever release a consumer medical product that doesn’t tell 99% of patients they should check with their doctor.

Also do you have any idea how many times my wife has said something to friends and family like “no you don’t need to go to the ER, you can wait and if their fever doesn’t go away in X days see their pediatrician during normal hours. It’s likely a virus and nothing can be done anyway”, only to have that person take their child to the ER because they want a doctor to look at their kid and tell them face face that nothing is wrong.

A phone call with an expert they know isn’t enough to replace an in person visit. ChatGPT will never be enough.

As far as radiologists go, they haven’t been replaced yet despite people saying it would happen for years. And they are in a unique position where people never actually see them.

But even if all image reads are done with AI, they can always retrain as interventional radiologists.

Your wife's anecdotal info is a meaningless datapoint.

That was just to counter this statement.

It’s also not her anecdote, it’s based on data across her entire enormous group. None of the ERs they staff have seen drops.

I work in radiology. This isn’t true. Having the AI circle the obviously broken bone, and put a ‘maybe fracture’ on anything vaguely difficult to interpret is a waste of time.

I also receive ‘AI’ referrals. They are hot trash and generate more work that the worst human referral. They sound like they are saying something sensible. But they aren’t.