Most
psychiatrists don’t believe artificial intelligence will replace human doctors
for complex tasks, but many recognize that the technology will have some impact
on their jobs.
By Jessica
Kent
July 31,
2019 - Only 3.8 percent of psychiatrists think it is likely that
artificial intelligence will completely overtake their jobs in the future,
according to a global survey conducted by Sermo.
Just 17 percent
believe the technology is likely to replace a human doctor’s role in providing
empathetic care, and 67 percent said it was unlikely that artificial
intelligence and machine learning could ever replace psychiatrists for mental
status examinations.
Sermo, in partnership
with researchers from Duke University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical
School, surveyed 791 psychiatrists across 22 countries. The first-of-its-kind
study asked mental health professionals to assess the likelihood that AI would
be able to replace, and not just assist, human psychiatrists.
The findings showed
that most psychiatrists don’t think AI will replace human doctors in performing
several essential tasks. These include evaluating homicidal thoughts (58
percent), interviewing patients in a range of settings to collect their medical
histories (58 percent), and formulating personalized treatment plans (53
percent).
In contrast, the
majority of participants do believe it is likely that AI will replace humans in
updating patient medical records (83 percent) and synthesizing patient
information to make diagnoses (54 percent). Forty-seven percent said they
believe AI and machine learning will change their jobs moderately over the next
25 years.
The researchers also
found that judgment about the risks and benefits of AI varied by physician
gender and practice location. While 35 percent of male psychiatrists said they
were uncertain that the benefits of AI would outweigh the risks, 48 percent of
female psychiatrists said the same.
Psychiatrists based
in the US were also more likely to be skeptical that the benefits of AI would
outweigh its potential risks. Forty-six percent of US respondents said they
were uncertain that the benefits of the technology would balance out the
potential pitfalls, while 32 percent of mental health doctors in the rest of
the world reported feeling the same.
These results
indicate that some doctors may not feel confident in their ability to navigate
AI in clinical settings, or that they may find it difficult to separate what
they hear from vendors from ground truth.
The team also
suggested that US mental health professionals may express more concern over
the potential risks of AI because the US
operates on multiple insurance systems, and has weaker data privacy rules than
European countries. American doctors indicated more concern around data
privacy, ethics, and risks of poorly validated AI algorithms.
“This should be a
high priority for research since even a single line of bad code could have
serious repercussions,” said Murali Doraiswamy, professor in the departments of
psychiatry and medicine at Duke.
The survey also asked
participants to submit open-ended qualitative comments about the potential
benefits and harms of AI. Possible benefits included “eliminating human error,”
“more efficient integration of big data,” and “streamlining workflow to free up
psychiatrist time.”
On the other hand,
psychiatrists cited “lack of empathy,” “will remain a thing and not a person,”
and “physicians will forsake creative thinking,” as potential risks.
Researchers noted
that the skepticism expressed by psychiatrists could be due to doctors’ caution
around the hype of AI, and may be stressing human
interaction and personalized professional analysis. Psychiatrists could also be
underestimating the speed at which AI is disrupting the field.
“The findings from
this survey raise questions about the preparedness of the profession to
navigate technological change in the delivery of patient care,” said Charlotte Blease, research
fellow in General Medicine at Harvard.
The survey has
important implications for those seeking to deploy AI tools in the mental
health field.
“Despite lively and
ongoing debate, limited attention has been paid to the views of practicing
physicians on the impact of AI on medical professions,” researchers said.
“This is especially
relevant in mental healthcare which depends on long-term, empathetic
relationships between physicians and highly vulnerable patients, and in light
of the flood of mental health apps available for download.”
The results of this
study show how mental health professionals perceive technologies of the future.
“To our knowledge,
this is the first global survey to seek the opinions of physicians on the
impact of autonomous AI/ML on the future of psychiatry,” researchers said. “Our
findings provide compelling insights into how physicians think about AI/ML
which in turn may help us better integrate technology and reskill doctors to
enhance mental healthcare.”
Going forward, it
will be critical for all physicians and stakeholders to view AI and other
analytics technologies as tools that can augment the patient and provider
experience.
“It is time for us to
stop thinking about AI as a battle of machines versus humans. We need to
instead focus on how AI can optimize and improve clinicians’ abilities to
deliver better care,” said Doraiswamy.
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