Algorithms have been competitive with humans for 20 years on radiology.
And yet humans have not yet been replaced.
Tell me what you expect to be different about the next 10 years that wasn't in the last 20? I'm open to being convinced. But you have to not just say that computers are going to be better - you have to explain why there wasn't already a switch.
Have you every done anything entrepreneurial in healthcare or just tried to introduce a new or different treatment standard?
1) It just takes longer in this field. Takes longer, but not necessarily more difficult (technically).
It's a nightmare and when I helped consult to a couple teams for a bit I was shocked at the slow speed everything gets done at. Many reasons for that, but it's hard to describe how unlike a typical fast moving startup it is (unless your not changing patient protocols).
2) ML is moving faster than it was 10 year ago. Way faster. So comparing work done 20 years ago is difficult, they just didn't have the same resources, ecosystem, and momentum.
3) It's only a hard problem in practice not in principle and well suited to ML. Unlike some problems where difficulty in practice doesn't match difficulty in principle (like warp drive space travel), the remaining engineering and open research questions don't suggest anything that will hit a wall, or prevent ultimate success on the order of the time frame suggested.
> It just takes longer in this field. Takes longer, but not necessarily more difficult (technically).
This immediately made me think "yeah they still use faxes", yet I don't think anyone doubts faxes are on the way out. Still "it just takes longer" understates the just how slow it is. It looks to me like a critical mass of older fax using doctors will have die off before the change can happen.
It does make you wonder how they get away with this. In most industries competition and cost pressures will force the change. Not so in medicine, apparently.
And yet humans have not yet been replaced.
Tell me what you expect to be different about the next 10 years that wasn't in the last 20? I'm open to being convinced. But you have to not just say that computers are going to be better - you have to explain why there wasn't already a switch.