CT News - Are Robot Doctors Going to Take Over for Humans?

The first robot in history has recently passed a series of examinations to become a doctor, it's name is Xiao Yi. It just took the same exams its human counterparts are required to pass and proved to the world that it had "mastered" the skills required of a doctor in China.

This robot didn't study the way a normal human would by hitting the books but rather needed a bit of help from his designers. Researchers prepared him for these exams by inputting knowledge from dozens of medical books over the past year.

But apparently these medical exams aren't just designed to test knowlege but also require proof of a "reasoning process" for treating a given symptom.

Xiao Yi made his programmers proud when it scored 465 points out of 600 total marks and offically passed China's National Medical Licensing Examination.

The makers of the robot from Tsinghua University in Beijing said the robot performed a lot better than expected!

"Its score is 96 points above the acceptance line," said Wu Ji, deputy head of the electronic engineering department.

"This shows that it has indeed mastered the medical knowledge and clinical knowledge, and it has owned the basic ability to employ the knowledge to solve some problems," he added.

"We made an electronic edition of the test paper for it, with the content same as the paper edition," said a worker at the National Medical Examination Center.

"We should say that robots are superior to people in memory, or storage capacity and computing ability," said Wu.

Beyond that workers at the examination center commented that he also showed a human approach when it came to treating sick people.

"Quite a few questions are case analyses, that is, you are informed the basic conditions of some patients and some of their symptoms, then you have to tell what disease it is, what treatment should be adopted or what medicine they should take.

"Many are questions like this. Such complicated questions cannot be answered only by searching.

"Therefore, it is essentially a reasoning process based on knowledge and probability model," said Wu.

Of course Xiao Yi will have to go through much more rigorous training before advancing to become a fully qualified doctor.

For now, Xiao Yi will be allowed to assist a human medic rather than replace one.

"What it can do most at present is to offer some possible suggestions to doctors, so as to help doctors to find where the problems lie more rapidly, or to avoid some risks," said Wu.

Take a quick look at Xiao Yi and see if you think this clever robot has the stuff it takes to make a good doc!

How do you feel about robotic doctors? Would you prefer a human one or would you be more satisfied if you had a statistically better experience or chance of getting better when being treated by a robot doctor?

Thanks for reading.

Source:

Robot doctors come a step closer as a machine passes medical exams with flying colours - The Mirror

Image Sources:

Daily Star