By MATTHEW PERRONE
WASHINGTON - For doctors, AI has loomed for about a decade as more algorithms promise to improve accuracy and speed up work. Predictions have ranged from doomsday scenarios in which AI fully replaces radiologists, to sunny futures in which it frees them to focus on the most rewarding aspects of their work.
It’s a new question for many workers amid the rise of ChatGPT and other AI programs that can hold conversations, write stories and even generate songs and images within seconds.
For doctors who review scans to spot cancer and other diseases, however, AI has loomed for about a decade as more algorithms promise to improve accuracy, speed up work and, in some cases, take over entire parts of the job. Predictions have ranged from doomsday scenarios in which AI fully replaces radiologists, to sunny futures in which it frees them to focus on the most rewarding aspects of their work.
That tension reflects how AI is rolling out across health care. Beyond the technology itself, much depends upon the willingness of doctors to put their trust — and their patients’ health — in the hands of increasingly sophisticated algorithms that few understand.
Even within the field, opinions differ on how much radiologists should be embracing the technology.
“Some of the AI techniques are so good, frankly, I think we should be doing them now,” said Dr. Ronald Summers, a radiologist and AI researcher at the National Institutes of Health. “Why are we letting that information just sit on the table?”
Why this matters
Radiologists have used computers to enhance images and flag suspicious areas since the 1990s. But the latest AI programs can go much further, interpreting the scans, offering a potential diagnosis and even drafting written reports about their findings. The algorithms are often trained on millions of X-rays and other images collected from hospitals.
Despite all the promises from industry, radiologists see reasons to be skeptical about AI programs: limited testing in real-world settings, lack of transparency about how they work and questions about the demographics of the patients used to train them.
The first large, rigorous studies testing AI-assisted radiologists against those working alone give hints at the potential improvements. Initial results from a Swedish study of 80,000 women showed a single radiologist working with AI detected 20% more cancers than two radiologists working without the technology, and using AI instead of a second reviewer decreased the human workload by 44%. Still, the study’s lead author says it’s essential that a radiologist make the final diagnosis in all cases.
