Known for his thoughts on the potential impact of artificial intelligence on the medical industry, legendary Silicon Valley investor and founder of Sun Microsystems Vinod Khosla said the other day that “any radiologist who plans to practice in 10 years will kill patients every day” because the decisions involved with machines will be developed to such an extent that they will become much more effective than professional medical practitioners.
What will happen to doctors in ten years?
Speaking at the final stage of the Creative Destruction Lab supersession in Toronto, Khosla said there should be no job as a radiologist as AI-based diagnostic technology has advanced and the profession will "sow death by choosing practice."
This position is consistent with his past statements on this issue. Back in 2017, he expressed the opinion that some types of doctors would become “obsolete” in five years (the time frame has increased slightly since then, but he added the time it would take for the community and the general public to make technology better). Khosla believes that oncologists will be outnumbered by domain-based AI alternatives, but this is to be expected in the 15-year horizon.
Instead, he believes that general practitioners will be more valuable, and they will work with AI in more specialized areas of medicine, which are now often considered to require higher qualifications. This fits perfectly with the idea of a narrow AI - which is better at dealing with special tasks.
Ilya Khel