Live data from Hacker News

Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

worksinprogress.news

311–320 of 486 posts

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#311

I'm an interventional radiologist with a master's in computer science. People outside radiology don't get why AI hasn't taken over. Can AI read diagnostic images better than a radiologist? Almost certainly the answer is (or will be) yes. Will radiologists be replaced? Almost certainly the answer is no. Why not? Medical risk. Unless the law changes, a radiologist will have to sign off on each imaging report. So say yo…

But this indicates lack of incentives to reduce healthcare costs by optimisation. If AI can do something well enough , and AI + humans surpass humans leading to costs reductions/ increased throughput this should be reflected in the workflows. I feel that human processes have inertia and for lack of a better word, gatekeepers feel that new, novel approaches should be adopted slowly and which is why we are not seeing t…

I think the one thing we will find out with the AI/Chatbot/LLM boom is: Most economic activity is already reasonably close to a local optimum. Either you find a way to change the whole process (and thereby eliminate steps completely) or you won't gain much.

That's true for AI-slop-in-the-media (most of the internet was already lowest effort garbage, which just got that tiny bit cheaper) and probably also in medicine (a slight increase in false negatives will be much, much more expensive than speeding up doctors by 50% for image interpretation). Once you get to the point where some other doctor is willing (and able) to take on the responsibility of that radiologist, then you can eliminate that kind of doctor (but still not her work. Just the additional human-human communication)

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#312
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most work is actually in oversight and getting the train to run when parts fail. When running millions of machines 24/7 there is always a failing part. Also understanding gesticulation humans and running wildlife is not yet (fully) automatable.

How does a human conductor stop a train from hitting a deer? Do they spot it from 3 miles away? The THSR I rode solved the wildlife problems with a big windshield wiper. Not sure what else there is to do. It’s a train .

At least one train has crashed with fatalities due to hitting a cow.

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#313

The best story I heard about machine learning and radiology was when folks were racing to try to detect COVID in lung X-rays. As I recall, one group had fairly good success, but eventually someone figured out that their data set had images from a low-COVID hospital and a high-COVID hospital, and the lettering on the images used different fonts. The ML model was detecting the font, not the COVID. [a bit of googling la…

I remember a claim that someone was trying to use an ML model to detect COVID by analyzing the sound of the patient coughing. I couldn't for the life of me understand how this was supposed to work. If the coughing of COVID patients (as opposed to patients with other respiratory illnesses) actually sounds meaningfully different in a statistically meaningful way (and why did they suppose that it would ? Phlegm is phleg…

I don't see why that's a bad idea. If you can also use dogs to detect COVID[1], surely you can build a machine with some sensor that can do the same.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/pmj/article/98/1157/212/6958858?log...

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#314
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realized long ago that full unattended self driving requires AGI. I think Elon finally figured that out. So now LLMs are going to evolve into AGI any moment. Um no. Tesla (and others) have effectively been working on AGI for 10 years with no luck

> I realized long ago that full unattended self driving requires AGI. Yikes. I recommend you take some introductory courses on AI and theory of computation.

That comment isn't going to age well.

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't most of the stuff a radiologist does get double checked anyways by the doctor that orders the scan in the first place? I guess not a more typical screening scan like a mammogram. However, for anything else like a CT, MRI, Xray, etc. I expect the doctor/NP that ordered it in the first place will want to take a look at the image itself and not just the report on the image.

As an ER doc I look at a lot of my own studies, because I'm often using my interpretation to guide real-time management (making decisions that can't wait for a radiologist). I've gotten much better over time, and I would speculate that I'm one of the better doctors in my small hospital at reading my own X-rays, CTs, and ultrasounds. I am nowhere near as good as our worst radiologist (who is, frankly... not great). It…

I’m fascinated. What makes a great radiologist so much better than the average?

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this indicates lack of incentives to reduce healthcare costs by optimisation. If AI can do something well enough , and AI + humans surpass humans leading to costs reductions/ increased throughput this should be reflected in the workflows. I feel that human processes have inertia and for lack of a better word, gatekeepers feel that new, novel approaches should be adopted slowly and which is why we are not seeing t…

The article points out that the AI + humans approach gives poorer results. Humans end up deferring to or just accepting the AI output without double checking. So corner cases, and situations where the AI doesn't do well just end up going through the system.

This is what I worry about - when someone gets a little lazy and leans too heavily on the tool. Perhaps their skills diminish over time. It seems AI could be used to review results after an analysis. That would be ok to me, but not before.

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#317
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how many people would want a second opinion (from a human) if they're presented with a bad discovery from a radiological exam and are then told it was fully automated. I have to admit if my life were on the line I might be that Karen.

Self-care is being Karen since when?

It's not. I was trying to evoke a world where it's become so common place that you're a nuisance if you're one of those people who questions it.

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay extra for a doctor's opinion. Probably not covered by insurance.

That's horrific. You pay insurance to have ChatGPT make the diagnosis. But you still need to pay out of pocket anyway. Because of that, I am 100% confident this will become reality. It is too good to pass up.

I mean, we already have deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums. If anything, this kind of policy could align with that because it's prophylactic. We can ensure we maximize the amount we retrieve from you before care kicks in this way. Yeah, it tracks.

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#319
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most work is actually in oversight and getting the train to run when parts fail. When running millions of machines 24/7 there is always a failing part. Also understanding gesticulation humans and running wildlife is not yet (fully) automatable.

How does a human conductor stop a train from hitting a deer? Do they spot it from 3 miles away? The THSR I rode solved the wildlife problems with a big windshield wiper. Not sure what else there is to do. It’s a train .

The goto is to scare the animal or human away with the horn.

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#320
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how many people would want a second opinion (from a human) if they're presented with a bad discovery from a radiological exam and are then told it was fully automated. I have to admit if my life were on the line I might be that Karen.

A bad discovery probably means your exam will be read by someone qualified, like the surgeon/doctor tasked with correcting it. False negatives are far more problematic.

Ah, you're right. Something else I'm curious about with these systems is how they'll affect difficulty level. If AI handles the majority of easy cases, and radiologists are already at capacity, so they crack if the only cases they evaluate are now moderately to extraordinarily difficult?
Post reply on HN