The AI will see you now

AI 可以给你看病了

　　Artificial intelligence is coming to medicine for good, ill or both

　　人工智能进驻医疗一一也许好,也许坏,也许兼而有之

　　For all the technological wonders of modern medicine, from gene-editing to fetal surgery, health care—with its fax machines and clipboards—is often stubbornly antiquated. This outdated era is slowly drawing to a close as, belatedly, the industry catches up with the artificial-intelligence (ai) revolution. And none too soon, argues Eric Topol, a cardiologist and enthusiast for digital medicine.

　　尽管有从基因编辑到胎儿手术等各种现代医学技术奇迹,但医疗行业往往又非常因循守旧它还在广泛使用传真机和夹纸记录板。而今这个行业总算开始追赶人工智能(AI)革命的热潮,一个落伍的时代正慢慢走向尾声。心脏病学家、数字医学信徒埃里克托普尔(Eric Topol)认为这样的变化早该发生了。

　　Dr Topol’s vision of medicine’s future is optimistic. He thinks ai will be particularly useful for repetitive, error-prone tasks, such as sifting images, scrutinising heart traces for abnormalities or transcribing doctors’ words into patient records. It will be able to harness masses of data to work out optimal treatments (for both conditions and individuals), and improve workflows in hospitals. In short, ai is set to save time, lives and money.

　　托普尔对医学的未来持乐观态度。他认为A对于重复性的、易出错的任务尤其有用,例如筛选图像、检查心脏异常的迹象,或将医生的话转录成病历。AI 将能够利用大量数据来制定出治疗某种疾病以及特定个体的最佳方案,并改善医院的工作流程。简而言之，AI 有望节省时间、金钱,并挽救生命。

　　Much of this is hypothetical—but ai is already outperforming people in a variety of narrow jobs for which it has been trained. Eventually it may be able to diagnose and treat a wider range of diseases. Even then, Dr Topol thinks, humans would oversee the algorithms, rather than being replaced by them.

　　这其中有相当一部分仍只是假设。但在经过专门训练后,AI 在各种特定工作任务中的表现已经超越人类。最终它也许将能够诊断和治疗更多类型的疾病。托普尔认为,即便真的如此,人类仍监督算法,而不是被A 取代。

　　The fear the author harbours is that ai will be used to deepen the assembly-line culture of modern medicine. If it confers a “gift of time” on doctors, he argues that this bonus should be used to prolong consultations, rather than simply speeding through them more efficiently.

　　作者心中的担忧是,A 会被用于进一步强化现代医学的流水线文化。如果它能给医生带来“时间的馈赠",他认为应将这个好处用于延长问诊时间,而不是简单地追求提高效率,快速完成诊疗。

　　That is a fine idea, but as health swallows an ever-bigger share of national wealth, greater efficiency is exactly what is needed, at least so far as governments and insurers are concerned. Otherwise, rich societies may fail to cope with the needs of ageing and growing populations. An extra five minutes spent chatting with a patient is costly as well as valuable. The ai revolution will also empower managerial bean-counters, who will increasingly be able to calibrate and appraise every aspect of treatment. The autonomy of the doctor will inevitably be undermined, especially, perhaps, in public-health systems which are duty-bound to trim inessential costs.

　　这是个不错的想法,但随着医疗支出耗费国家财富的比重越来越高,需要做到的正是提高效率,至少对政府和保险公司而言是这样。否则,富裕社会可能无法应对老龄化和人口增长带来的医疗需求。和患者多谈五分钟很有价值,但成本也很高。AI 革命还将赋能财务管理人员,提高他对治疗的方方面面做出调整和评估的能力。医生的自主权将不可避免地被削弱,在有责任削減不必要成本的公共卫生系统中也许尤其如此。

　　The Hippocratic Oath holds that there is an art to medicine as well as a science, and that “warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug”. That is not just a platitude: the patients of sympathetic physicians have been shown to fare better. As Dr Topol says, it is hard to imagine that a robot could really replace a human doctor. Yet as demand for health care outstrips the supply of human carers, the future may involve consultations on smartphones and measurements monitored by chatbots. The considerately warmed stethoscope, placed gently on a patient’s back, may become a relic of the past.

　　按希波克拉底誓言所说,医学既是科学又是艺术,“医生给予病人的温暖、同情和理解有时比外科医生的手术刀和药剂师的药更重要”。这并不是陈词滥调：研究显示,医生富有同情心,患者恢复得更好。正如托普尔所说,很难想象机器人真的可以取代人类医生。然而，随着对医疗的需求超过了人类医疗工作者的供给,未来人们可能需要通过智能手机问诊,由聊天机器人来监控测量结果。医生体贴地将听医生体贴地将听诊器捂暖后再轻轻贴在病人背部的情形可能会成为历史。

　　In the end technology may even be able to solve the empathy deficit. Japanese engineers are working on robots that simulate human presence, or sonzai-kan. A machine could never truly develop the shared humanity that helps patients heal. That doesn’t mean it cannot be faked.

　　未来,技术甚至可能会解决共情缺失的问题。 日本工程师正在研究模拟人性( sonal-kan) 的机器人。机器可能永远无法真正发展出人类共有的特性来帮助患者康复,但这并不意昧着它们不能假装有。

　　注：双语全文源自EC0

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