This abstract of an article was analyzed by a leading academic writing service https://qualitycustomessays.com Our professional writers' found the connection between medicine and technology. According to their report, the expert systems built on the basis of deep specialized knowledge about a certain subject area have been in development for many years. One of the first expert systems was called MYCIN. Even 40 years ago, the system showed good results, but it never went commercial. Despite the success of MYSIN, such reasons as the high cost of equipment, the imperfection of artificial intelligence, and the complexity of the work of doctors have hindered its widespread use, which would explain why there are no bot physicians today.
MYCIN was developed at Stanford University in the 1970s. The task of this system was the diagnosis and treatment of certain classes of infectious blood diseases. Back in 1974, at the earliest stage of development of MYCIN, quite encouraging results were obtained. A team of five highly qualified experts in the field of diagnosing infectious diseases confirmed the correctness of 72% of the recommendations of the system in relation to 15 real diseases. MYCIN was developed partly for examining diagnosis by experts based on approximate but important assumptions based on incomplete information. However, the following problem was potentially important for the practice. Many young doctors or non-specialists in this field had to make such diagnoses sometimes. Thus, if there was any tool that could help them, the treatment of diseases would be more effective
Nevertheless, for a number of reasons, MYCIN was never used in actual medical practice. At first, the knowledge base of the system, including about 400 rules, was still insufficient for the actual implementation to the practice of treating patients with infectious diseases. The second reason was the high cost of using this equipment. According to Darrel, “Expert systems' introduction requires the acquisition of a rather expensive computer, which most medical institutions could not afford at that time”. In addition, the existing user interface in 1976 in the version of the system was not carefully developed. Thus, MYCIN, with all its practical orientation, never went beyond being an experimental research system that was not designed for commercial use. Considering the successes of one of the first expert systems and the fact that technical progress has been tremendous, it is not clear why there are still no bot physicians. Nevertheless, several could explain such a situation. Globally, this phenomenon is called ‘process automation’. It is believed that the maximum potential of medicine automation is about 36%. Anything related to routine functions, such as making ECG, studying X-ray images, and information gathering, has the highest potential for automation. For example, x-ray laboratory technicians are more likely to be replaced with machines than doctors are. Although humans cannot compete with robots in operating huge databases, the latter will not be able to replace doctors soon and make diagnoses on their own. The main reason is that in order to make a diagnosis, doctors must be able to find an approach to a patient and have a delicate feeling of human psychology. It often happens that a person cannot accurately explain their symptoms, or their explanations are not clear enough. In such cases. the doctor's experience, the ability to make non-standard decisions, thus moving away from the algorithm, and their ability to work with the patient usually play a crucial role in diagnosing illnesses.
Therefore, artificial intelligence already learns how to decipher tests and X-ray; soon, probably, it will be able to make simple diagnoses. However, in difficult cases, the doctor's experience and their unconventional thinking remain the most important thing since it is impossible to consider a great variety of solutions for all issues that doctors face every day.