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OpenAI’s o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of ER patients vs. 50-55% by triage doctors

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Re: OpenAI’s o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of ER patients vs. 50-55% by triage doctors

#141
post #11

I'd be very very hesitant to trust studies like this. It's very easy to mess up these benchmarks. See for example this recent paper where AI managed to beat radiologists on interpreting x-rays... when the AI didn't even have access to the x-rays: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.21687 (on a pre existing "large scale visual question answering benchmark for generalist chest x-ray understanding" that wasn't intentionally mess…

I agree with you on this specific study, however, I can't really wrap my head about the fact that doctors will be better than AI models on the long-run. After all, medicine is all about knowledge, experience and intelligence (maybe "pattern recognition"), all those, we must assume that the best AI models (especially ones focusing solely in the medical field) would largely beat large majority of humans (aka doctors),…

> What is the specific capability (or combination of capabilities) that people believe will remain permanently (or at least for decades) where a top medical AI cannot match or exceed the performance of a good human doctor?

Detecting when patient is lying . all patients lie - Dr. House

Re: OpenAI’s o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of ER patients vs. 50-55% by triage doctors

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on this specific study, however, I can't really wrap my head about the fact that doctors will be better than AI models on the long-run. After all, medicine is all about knowledge, experience and intelligence (maybe "pattern recognition"), all those, we must assume that the best AI models (especially ones focusing solely in the medical field) would largely beat large majority of humans (aka doctors),…

> After all, medicine is all about knowledge, experience and intelligence (maybe "pattern recognition"), all those, we must assume that the best AI models (especially ones focusing solely in the medical field) would largely beat large majority of humans No, I don’t see that we must. > if we already have this assumption for software engineers No, this doesn’t follow, and even if it did, while I am aware that the CEOs…

You’re holding on to the intuition (hope) that we are smarter than the LLMs in some hard to define way. Maybe. But it’s getting harder and harder to define a task that humans beat LLMs on. On pretty much any easily quantifiable test of knowledge or reasoning, the machines win. I agree experienced humans are still better on “judgement” tasks in their field. But the judgement tasks are kinda necessarily ones where there isn’t a correct answer. And even then, I think the machines’ judgement is better than a lot of humans.

Is medical diagnosis one of these high judgement tasks? Personally I don’t think so.

Re: OpenAI’s o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of ER patients vs. 50-55% by triage doctors

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on this specific study, however, I can't really wrap my head about the fact that doctors will be better than AI models on the long-run. After all, medicine is all about knowledge, experience and intelligence (maybe "pattern recognition"), all those, we must assume that the best AI models (especially ones focusing solely in the medical field) would largely beat large majority of humans (aka doctors),…

> After all, medicine is all about knowledge, experience and intelligence So is... everything? LLMs are really really good at knowledge. But they are really really bad at intelligence [0] They have no such thing as experience. Do not fool yourself, intelligence and knowledge are not the same thing. It is extremely easy to conflate the two and we're extremely biased to because the two typically strongly correlate. But…

Yeah, I mean, I don't know where all of this is going, but I do think that the ancients cared WAY more about "embodied knowledge" than we do, and I suspect we're about to find out a lot more about what that is and why it matters.

Re: OpenAI’s o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of ER patients vs. 50-55% by triage doctors

#144
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After all, medicine is all about knowledge, experience and intelligence (maybe "pattern recognition"), all those, we must assume that the best AI models (especially ones focusing solely in the medical field) would largely beat large majority of humans No, I don’t see that we must. > if we already have this assumption for software engineers No, this doesn’t follow, and even if it did, while I am aware that the CEOs…

You’re holding on to the intuition (hope) that we are smarter than the LLMs in some hard to define way. Maybe. But it’s getting harder and harder to define a task that humans beat LLMs on. On pretty much any easily quantifiable test of knowledge or reasoning, the machines win. I agree experienced humans are still better on “judgement” tasks in their field. But the judgement tasks are kinda necessarily ones where ther…

LLM’s operate on a mechanical form of intelligence one that at present is not adaptive to changes in the environment.

If the latter part of your post were true, how come the demand for radiologists has grown? The problem with this place is it’s full of people who don’t understand nuance. And your post demonstrates this emphatically.

Re: OpenAI’s o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of ER patients vs. 50-55% by triage doctors

#145
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After all, medicine is all about knowledge, experience and intelligence (maybe "pattern recognition"), all those, we must assume that the best AI models (especially ones focusing solely in the medical field) would largely beat large majority of humans No, I don’t see that we must. > if we already have this assumption for software engineers No, this doesn’t follow, and even if it did, while I am aware that the CEOs…

You’re holding on to the intuition (hope) that we are smarter than the LLMs in some hard to define way. Maybe. But it’s getting harder and harder to define a task that humans beat LLMs on. On pretty much any easily quantifiable test of knowledge or reasoning, the machines win. I agree experienced humans are still better on “judgement” tasks in their field. But the judgement tasks are kinda necessarily ones where ther…

>But it’s getting harder and harder to define a task that humans beat LLMs on. On pretty much any easily quantifiable test of knowledge or reasoning, the machines win.

I and likely the person who you replayed to don't find that existing studies actually hold this to be true.

Re: OpenAI’s o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of ER patients vs. 50-55% by triage doctors

#146
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of, if not THE biggest challenge in getting treatment is getting past insurance rules designed to deny treatment. This is much, much easier when you're able to convince a doctor (and/or trained medical staff) to argue on your behalf. If you can't get those folks to listen to you, that's probably not gonna happen. You might have to go through several different practices before you find a sympathetic ear. Now repla…

Sounds like we need to dismantle and replace this broadly dysfunctional system at multiple points. It's not like the US insurance landscape is anywhere close to the best way of handling healthcare if you look at many places in the world.

[flagged]

Re: OpenAI’s o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of ER patients vs. 50-55% by triage doctors

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on this specific study, however, I can't really wrap my head about the fact that doctors will be better than AI models on the long-run. After all, medicine is all about knowledge, experience and intelligence (maybe "pattern recognition"), all those, we must assume that the best AI models (especially ones focusing solely in the medical field) would largely beat large majority of humans (aka doctors),…

> After all, medicine is all about knowledge, experience and intelligence (maybe "pattern recognition"), all those, we must assume that the best AI models (especially ones focusing solely in the medical field) would largely beat large majority of humans No, I don’t see that we must. > if we already have this assumption for software engineers No, this doesn’t follow, and even if it did, while I am aware that the CEOs…

Self-improving system given enough time to self-improve doesn't beat non-self-improving system?

Re: OpenAI’s o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of ER patients vs. 50-55% by triage doctors

#148
post #11

I'd be very very hesitant to trust studies like this. It's very easy to mess up these benchmarks. See for example this recent paper where AI managed to beat radiologists on interpreting x-rays... when the AI didn't even have access to the x-rays: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.21687 (on a pre existing "large scale visual question answering benchmark for generalist chest x-ray understanding" that wasn't intentionally mess…

I haven't finished reading the linked paper, but I'm intrigued by the assumption that the results show illusion or mirage results when not giving access to the x-rays.

It seems like a very reasonable take away, but it skips the other one. Do x-rays make results less accurate?

Re: OpenAI’s o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of ER patients vs. 50-55% by triage doctors

#149
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors are not necessarily great at talking to patients and patients are unhappy with the information Doctors provide. This moat has dried up.

If you prefer an LLM to a human doctor, you deserve an LLM instead of a human doctor, and I wish you get it.

Free markets and all that right?

Ok fellas put your money where your mouth is. It’s easy to talk until you put your money behind it (or lack of by getting rid of spending on it) if you are so confident in doctor as a service by llm.

Re: OpenAI’s o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of ER patients vs. 50-55% by triage doctors

#150
post #11

I'd be very very hesitant to trust studies like this. It's very easy to mess up these benchmarks. See for example this recent paper where AI managed to beat radiologists on interpreting x-rays... when the AI didn't even have access to the x-rays: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.21687 (on a pre existing "large scale visual question answering benchmark for generalist chest x-ray understanding" that wasn't intentionally mess…

I agree with you on this specific study, however, I can't really wrap my head about the fact that doctors will be better than AI models on the long-run. After all, medicine is all about knowledge, experience and intelligence (maybe "pattern recognition"), all those, we must assume that the best AI models (especially ones focusing solely in the medical field) would largely beat large majority of humans (aka doctors),…

I would love to replace my doctors with AI. Today. Please. I have had Long Covid for over a year now, which is a shitty shitty condition. It’s complicated and not super well understood. But you know who understands it way better than any doctor I’ve ever seen? Every AI I’ve talked to about it. Because there is tons of research going on, and the AI is (with minor prompting) fully up to date on all of it.

I take treatment ideas to real doctors. They are skeptical, and don’t have the time to read the actual research, and refuse to act. Or give me trite advice which has been proven actively harmful like “you just need to hit the gym.” Umm, my heart rate doubles when I stand up because of POTS. “Then use the rowing machine so can stay reclined.” If I did what my human doctors have told me without doing my own research I would be way sicker than I am.

I don’t need empathy. I don’t need bedside manner. Or intuition. Or a warm hug. I need somebody who will read all the published research, and reason carefully about what’s going on in my body, and develop a treatment plan. At this, AI beats human doctors today by a long shot.

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