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AI: The Doctor That Never Tires?

Plus: the Swedish salad approach to probiotics

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The 10almonds Team
September 23, 2023

 

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

Loading Screen Tip: what gets measured, is more likely to get done.

Fitness trackers, sleep trackers, and similar devices tend to improve our fitness, sleep, and so forth—even if we don’t consciously and deliberately change our habits around those things.

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⏰ IN A RUSH?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

  • Human medical practitioners suffer from burnout, fatigue, and even more serious mental health problems that do not afflict AI.

    • Serious mistakes are made by humans at an alarming rate, because of the above-mentioned factors

      • Artificial Intelligence is far from flawless, but has now outstripped humans in terms of clinical accuracy, and will only continue to improve.

  • AI can, however, perpetuate human biases, depending on the information (sourced from biased humans) that it was trained on.

  • A hybrid model of healthcare seems most promising: humans and machines giving each other information, and catching any mistakes made by the other.

    • Machines allow humans to make more informed decisions, while humans still get veto power on the machines’ recommendations.

  • The conditions associated with untreated menopause can range from the inconvenient (e.g. mood swings) to the potentially life-threatening (e.g. heart palpitations)

    • There are at least 30 distinct symptoms that have been identified as being related to the menopause, yet often they get hand-waved away.

      • Today’s sponsor, Wellcore, is offering an at-home test kit to help take your menopausal healthcare into your own hands, and find out what is responsible for what—and then enjoy treatment, if appropriate.

Read on to learn about these things and more…

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👀 WATCH AND LEARN

Probiotic fermented carrots, with dill, garlic and ginger

Adrienna shows us how to take the “Swedish salad” approach to enjoying probiotics:

Tasty menu:

🤖 MAIN FEATURE

AI: The Doctor That Never Tires?

We asked you for your opinion on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare, and got the above-depicted, below-described set of results:

  • A little over half of respondents to the poll voted for “It speeds up research, and is more methodical about diagnosis, so it's at least a good extra tool”

  • A quarter of respondents voted for “I’m on the fence—it seems to make no more nor less mistakes than human doctors do”

  • A little under a fifth of respondents voted for “AI is less prone to fatigue/bias than human doctors, making it an essential new tech”

  • Three respondents voted for “AI is a step too far in medical technology, and we’re not ready for it”

Writer’s note: I’m a professional writer (you’d never have guessed, right?) and, apparently, I really did write “no more nor less mistakes”, despite the correct grammar being “no more nor fewer mistakes”. Now, I know this, and in fact, people getting less/fewer wrong is a pet hate of mine. Nevertheless, I erred.

Yet, now that I’m writing this out in my usual software, and not directly into the poll-generation software, my (AI!) grammar/style-checker is highlighting the error for me.

Now, an AI could not do my job. ChatGPT would try, and fail miserably. But can technology help me do mine better? Absolutely!

And still, I dismiss a lot of the AI’s suggestions, because I know my field and can make informed choices. I don’t follow it blindly, and I think that’s key.

AI is less prone to fatigue/bias than human doctors, making it an essential new tech: True or False?

True—with one caveat.

First, a quick anecdote from a subscriber who selected this option in the poll:

❝As long as it receives the same data inputs as my doctor (ie my entire medical history), I can see it providing a much more personalised service than my human doctor who is always forgetting what I have told him. I'm also concerned that my doctor may be depressed - not an ailment that ought to affect AI! I recently asked my newly qualified doctor goddaughter whether she would prefer to be treated by a human or AI doctor. No contest, she said - she'd go with AI. Her argument was that human doctors leap to conclusions, rather than properly weighing all the evidence - meaning AI, as long as it receives the same inputs, will be much more reliable❞

Now, an anecdote is not data, so what does the science say?

Well… It says the same:

❝Of 6695 responding physicians in active practice, 6586 provided information on the areas of interest: 3574 (54.3%) reported symptoms of burnout, 2163 (32.8%) reported excessive fatigue, and 427 (6.5%) reported recent suicidal ideation, with 255 of 6563 (3.9%) reporting a poor or failing patient safety grade in their primary work area and 691 of 6586 (10.5%) reporting a major medical error in the prior 3 months. Physicians reporting errors were more likely to have symptoms of burnout (77.6% vs 51.5%; P<.001), fatigue (46.6% vs 31.2%; P<.001), and recent suicidal ideation (12.7% vs 5.8%; P<.001).❞

AI, of course, does not suffer from burnout, fatigue, or suicidal ideation.

So, what was the caveat?

The caveat is about bias. Humans are biased, and that goes for medical practitioners just the same. AI’s machine learning is based on source data, and the source data comes from humans, who are biased.

So, AI can perpetuate human biases and doesn’t have a special extra strength in this regard.

The lack of burnout, fatigue, and suicidal ideation, however, make a big difference.

AI speeds up research, and is more methodical about diagnosis: True or False?

True! AI is getting more and more efficient at this, and as has been pointed out, doesn’t make errors due to fatigue, and often comes to accurate conclusions near-instantaneously. To give just one example:

❝Deep learning algorithms achieved better diagnostic performance than a panel of 11 pathologists participating in a simulation exercise designed to mimic routine pathology workflow; algorithm performance was comparable with an expert pathologist interpreting whole-slide images without time constraints. The area under the curve was 0.994 (best algorithm) vs 0.884 (best pathologist).❞

About that “getting more and more efficient at this”; it’s in the nature of machine learning that every new piece of data improves the neural net being used. So long as it is getting fed new data, which it can process at rate far exceeding humans’ abilities, it will always be constantly improving.

AI makes no more nor less fewer mistakes than humans do: True or False?

False! AI makes fewer, now. This study is from 2021, and it’s only improved since then:

❝Professionals only came to the same conclusions [as each other] approximately 75 per cent of the time. More importantly, machine learning produced fewer decision-making errors than did all the professionals❞

All that said, we’re not quite at Star Trek levels of “AI can do a human’s job entirely” just yet:

To summarize: medical AI is a powerful tool that:

  • Makes healthcare more accessible

  • Speeds up diagnosis

  • Reduces human error

…and yet, for now at least, still requires human oversights, checks and balances.

Essentially: it’s not really about humans vs machines at all. It’s about humans and machines giving each other information, and catching any mistakes made by the other. That way, humans can make more informed decisions, and still keep a “hand on the wheel”.

❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

Wellcore | Personalized Menopausal Healthcare

People tend to know about hot flashes, but did you know there are more than 30 symptoms associated with menopause? Maybe you knew about weight gain and bone density loss, but night sweats and heart palpitations?

The conditions associated with untreated menopause can range from the inconvenient to the potentially life-threatening.

And yet, many people are left to guess at what symptoms might mean, or worse, simply ignore them.

Wellcore believes in doing better. To make diagnosis and treatment much more accessible to everyone, they offer an at-home testing kit. They’ll then analyze the results, and offer appropriate hormone therapy themselves if you want it (there are many benefits).

Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

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🌍 AROUND THE WEB

What’s happening in the health world…

More to come tomorrow!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

Happy Mind, Happy Life: The New Science of Mental Well-Being – by Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

Let's start with a "why". If happiness doesn't strike you as a worthwhile goal in and of itself, Dr. Chatterjee discusses the health implications of happiness/unhappiness.

And, yes, including in studies where other factors were controlled for, so he shows how happiness/unhappiness does really have a causal role in health—it's not just a matter of "breaking news: sick people are less happy".

The author, a British GP (General Practitioner, the equivalent of what the US calls a "family doctor") with decades of experience, has found a lot of value in the practice of holistic medicine. For this reason, it's what he recommends to his patients at work, in his books, his blog, and his regular spot on a popular BBC breakfast show.

The writing style is relaxed and personable, without skimping on information density. Indeed, Dr. Chatterjee offers many pieces of holistic health advice, and dozens of practical exercises to boost your happiness and proof you against adversity.

Because, whatever motivational speakers may say, we can't purely "think ourselves happy"; sometimes we have real external threats and bad things in life. But, we can still improve our experience of even these things, not to mention suffer less, and get through it in better shape with a smile at the end of it.

Bottom line: if you'd like to be happier and healthier (who wouldn't?), then this book is a sure-fire way to set you on that path.

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May today see you well-prepared for the coming weekend,

The 10almonds Team