Many questions, do we have answers?

Many questions. This article, while it may seem long and sometimes challenging, aims to provide answers to many of them.

If you are reading these lines, it is very likely that you are doing so on someone’s recommendation or, possibly, facing a serious health problem. If you do not find yourself in these situations, consider yourself lucky; simple curiosity is also a good sign. Are there really solutions?

For a minute, let’s change the subject and turn our attention to a field seemingly unrelated to the medical subject, namely: the education system.

If you are a parent living in a rural area, far from a large city, and your child attends the local school, you are probably constantly worried about the quality of their education.

In ideal situations, your children could benefit from very good teachers and professors, and their preparation would be identical to those studying at a prestigious school in a big city. But what are the chances that this scenario is real?

We must admit that these chances are not very high, because highly-rated and well-prepared teachers usually migrate to big cities, where they have much greater opportunities for advancement and earnings than in a less favored geographical area.

So, from the start, your child is disadvantaged in the competition for the future.

Do you think your child will succeed in closing the gap with a peer who studies in a renowned school? Do you think the differences in preparation will not be felt? What will be the result at the next exam? Who has a better chance: the student trained in a prestigious educational institution or your child who, although hardworking, may not benefit from all the advantages of high-level education?

What solutions do you think you have?

• Pay more money to ensure daily transportation to a recognized educational institution in a big city.
• Rent a room for your son/daughter to benefit from superior training and arrange for tutors.
• Move your whole family to a bigger city.
  Any of these options is possible, but each involves many disadvantages.

Question: Could all students have similar preparation, regardless of their location?
The answer is affirmative. Artificial intelligence (AI) could erase the differences, and a teacher assisted by artificial intelligence could be just as good, regardless of where they work, because the instruction could be equivalent. In this way, life chances would be equalized.

Now, let’s try the same thought process in medicine, returning to our case, in oncology. If you are a patient with a neoplastic disease and live in an area far from a large urban center, you find yourself in a situation somewhat similar to the student we discussed earlier.

If you are a newly diagnosed patient:

Unfortunately, if you have been diagnosed with cancer, a quick decision is needed, followed by the development of a therapeutic plan and the initiation of specific treatment. Frequently, due to the large number of patients with oncological disease, the small number of oncologists, and the dysfunctions in the healthcare system, you may find yourself on a waiting list, with an appointment that can take weeks, during which the evolution of the disease and the uncertainty regarding the future increase psychological pressure and anxiety.

Subsequently, other questions arise:

• Which doctor should I go to?
• Who is better known?
• Who has the best results?
• Is the doctor I signed up with the best, or should I have made a different choice?
  All these dilemmas arise over time, and as a result of conflicting information from family members or acquaintances, you may find yourself with a list of doctors from different cities who have helped other people and have good references.

Who do you choose???

If you are already diagnosed with cancer and the disease is progressing (progression or metastases):
In addition to the shock of the diagnosis of progression or the appearance of metastases, after your dialogue with the treating oncologist, you face new dilemmas:

• Why did the disease progress?
• Is my doctor the best solution, or should I have gone to another doctor?
• Is the new treatment plan proposed the best, or are there others that are more effective?
• If there are other solutions I don’t know about, how can I find out?

Interestingly, the solution proposed within the education system could be just as effective in the medical system. Basically, artificial intelligence would help a doctor make the same decisions that would be proposed in a large oncology center; the therapeutic solutions, treatment regimens, and the conception regarding diagnosis, investigations, and treatment could be the same.

After all, who prevents the application of effective solutions?
The simple answer: pride.
It is hard to accept that artificial intelligence can sometimes be better than us.

About 25 years ago, when electronic devices had started to become smaller and more compact, people who had a business were trying to find solutions to help them plan their activities. For those who had money, this was never a problem, as they could hire a secretary.

The problem arose for those who had a smaller business but didn’t have enough funds to hire staff.

The initial solution was the appearance of those devices called PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) and, subsequently, mobile phones, which acquired more and more functions and could take over more and more organizational tasks.

Certainly, it is better to have a secretary, as your public image is greatly improved. But if you don’t have enough funds and don’t want this, technology can help you.

Today, the development of artificial intelligence puts us in the somewhat embarrassing situation where the “secretary” turns out to be professionally better and finds more solutions than we can. It is a relatively embarrassing situation, difficult to accept; after all, we, humans, are quite proud.

History has recorded a similar period with the moment of the Industrial Revolution, when workers destroyed industrial steam engines so that they would not take their jobs; then too there was fierce opposition against progress and the introduction of innovations.

You must conclude that history is cyclical.

We are in a similar situation. We oppose artificial intelligence because we are convinced it will replace us and we will lose our jobs, but at the same time, we would like teachers to use artificial intelligence to better educate our children, and doctors to use artificial intelligence to receive more efficient diagnoses and treatments, identical to those performed in large oncology centers.

So, if artificial intelligence educates our children at a higher level, regardless of where the educational process takes place, and if artificial intelligence establishes a treatment plan identical to that in large centers, then it is good; but if we feel it is “too good” and takes our place, then it is “no longer good.” We face a paradox.

What is to be done?

The answer is relatively simple.
We must accept that artificial intelligence could become superior to us (if each of us were characterized individually). We must overcome our professional pride, regardless of the profession we practice, and accept that the volume of information incorporated in artificial intelligence is much superior to ours and, no matter how studious and dedicated we are to our work, we will never be able to read and incorporate information from the thousands of studies and published articles that currently exist in the world.

If you haven’t gotten bored reading this article so far, I think you anticipate what’s coming.

Question: Is artificial intelligence superior in terms of the volume of information compared to a doctor or a teacher taken individually?
Answer: Yes, because it accumulates thousands of articles, studies, etc., which could never be read and memorized by a single individual.

Question: Is there a risk of errors?
Answer: Yes, artificial intelligence models can give incorrect answers, but errors can also occur in humans due to fatigue, inattention, overload, lack of time for processing information, so the situation is equivalent.

Question: Can artificial intelligence replace humans at this moment?
Answer: No, because an interface is needed between humans and artificial intelligence, the latter not being capable at this moment of some specifically human feelings, such as empathy (it can be mimicked, but it is not real). Also, other specifically human attributes, such as a doctor’s ability to encourage a patient, cannot be reproduced by artificial intelligence (encouragements generated by AI are usually formal, cold, lacking emotional modulation). Currently, technology cannot replace the human factor in medical decision-making, but it can assist in a more complex approach to the case.

Question: After the appearance of quantum processors, what will happen?
Answer: (I hope it doesn’t look like this)

class ResponseProvider:

    def __init__(self):

        self.responses = {

            “hello”: “Hi there!”,

            “bye”: “Goodbye!”

        }

 

    def get_response(self, input_text: str) -> str:

        return self.responses.get(input_text, “I don’t understand.”)

 

def main(provider: ResponseProvider):

    user_input = input(“Enter something: “)

    response = provider.get_response(user_input)

    print(response)

 

if __name__ == “__main__”:

    provider = ResponseProvider()

    main(provider)

Thinking…………………………………………………………….
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“I’LL BE BACK” !!!!!!