One thing people aren't talking about is liability.
At the end of the day if the radiologist makes an error the radiologist gets sued.
If AI replaces the radiologist then it is OpenAI or some other AI company that will get sued each and every time the AI model makes a mistake. No AI company wants to be on the hook for that.
So what will happen? Simple. AI will always remain just a tool to assist doctors. But there will always be a disclaimer attached to the output saying that ultimately the radiologist should use his or her judgement. And then the liability would remain with the human not the AI company.
Maybe AI will "replace" radiologists in very poor countries where people may not have had access to radiologists in the first place. In some places in the world it is cheap to get an xray but still can be expensive to pay someone to interpret it. But in the United States the fear of malpractice will mean radiologists never go away.
EDIT: I know the article mentions liability but it mentions it as just one reason among many. My contention is that liability will be the fundamental reason radiologists are never replaced regardless of how good the AI systems get. This applies to other specialities too.
>At the end of the day if the radiologist makes an error the radiologist gets sued.
Are you sure? Who would want to be a radiologist then when a single false negative could bankrupt you? I think it's more likely that as long as they make a best effort at trying to classify correctly then they would be fine.
Doctors have malpractice insurance and other kinds of insurance for that. They won't go bankrupt in reality.
By that logic you would get malpractice insurance for the AI to similarly offload the risk.
Yeah, I mean it's analogous to car insurance for self driving cars. People, including lawyers, insurers and courts are just averse to it intuitively. I'm not saying they are wrong or right, but it's how it is.
I believe medical AI will probably take hold first in a poorer countries where the existing care is too bad/unaffordable, then as it proves itself there, it may slowly find its way to richer countries.
But probably lobbying will be strong against it, just as you can't get cheap generic medications made in India if you live in the US.