Science & Technology

Can AI Catch What Doctors Miss? | Eric Topol | TED

AI could propel the biggest transformation in the history of medicine, says physician-scientist Eric Topol. He explains how sophisticated AI models can interpret medical images as well or better than human experts can — and, beyond that, even pick up things that human eyes can’t see. Learn all the ways AI is poised to make…

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AI could propel the biggest transformation in the history of medicine, says physician-scientist Eric Topol. He explains how sophisticated AI models can interpret medical images as well or better than human experts can — and, beyond that, even pick up things that human eyes can’t see. Learn all the ways AI is poised to make a difference for both patients and doctors.

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88 Comments

  1. @gunny1391

    December 9, 2023 at 9:44 am

    As a people leader, I realized early on to never focus on the metrics alone, but to also focus on the behaviors that drive the metrics.

    When cost is the driver in our medical field, and our patients outcomes are the metric, we all perform at an unsatisfactory level. While I am extremely excited for the future of AI in medicine, the cost initiative needs to be addressed to improve the outcomes for our people, and save more lives!

  2. @mybachhertzbaud3074

    December 9, 2023 at 10:36 am

    I suspect ultimately that since it relies on human input to learn from, most answers will come to the same conclusions that many doctors are very reluctant to say…. “I don’t know”!😜

  3. @thecritic8096

    December 9, 2023 at 11:21 am

    Frankly no. AI can only “catch” what is stored in their algorithms. They cannot catch anything outside their programming. 🤔

  4. @madhunadella6242

    December 9, 2023 at 11:37 am

    AI can be a valuable tool in healthcare by aiding doctors in analyzing data efficiently. It excels at processing large datasets and identifying patterns, which can be beneficial for early diagnosis or treatment recommendations. However, AI should work alongside, not replace, the expertise of doctors. Human judgment, empathy, and a contextual understanding of patients are essential aspects of healthcare that AI currently lacks. The most effective approach involves a collaborative relationship between AI technology and healthcare professionals.

  5. @fabriziocasula

    December 9, 2023 at 11:53 am

    Hello, I am a computer and biomedical engineer living in Basel, Switzerland! I was fascinated by this presentation! I have been working on AI full-time and also as a hobby for some time now… it would be fantastic to work with Prof. Topol 🙂 I will try to contact him. Thank you.

  6. @MattDSchenk

    December 9, 2023 at 11:56 am

    Living in China, I’ve had experiences where healthcare didn’t catch everything. I used ChatGPT 4 to check my bloodwork and test results, and it pointed out issues my doctor missed or didn’t mention. This really shows the value of AI in healthcare, as Eric Topol’s TED Talk suggests. It’s amazing to see technology becoming an invaluable tool for health insights.

    我在中国生活,有时候会遇到医疗服务没能注意到的问题。我用ChatGPT 4来复查我的血液检查和其他检测结果,它发现了一些医生没提到或没注意到的问题。这真的显示了AI在医疗健康方面的价值,正如Eric Topol的TED演讲所指出的。看到这样的技术成为我们获取健康信息的宝贵工具,真是令人惊叹。

  7. @GianetanSekhon

    December 9, 2023 at 12:16 pm

    This video is about the potential of AI in healthcare, particularly in medical diagnosis. The speaker, Eric Topol, discusses how AI can be used to analyze medical images, such as retinas and chest x-rays, to identify abnormalities that may be missed by human doctors. He also describes how AI can be used to analyze electronic health records to identify patients at risk for developing certain diseases.

    One of the most interesting examples Topol gives is the case of Andrew, a young boy who suffered from three years of pain and other symptoms before finally being diagnosed with occult spina bifida. His mother entered his symptoms into ChatGPT, which was able to make the correct diagnosis. This case highlights the potential of AI to help diagnose rare or difficult-to-diagnose diseases.

    Topol also discusses the potential of AI to help doctors save time and improve the patient-doctor relationship. He envisions a future where AI can be used to generate synthetic notes from doctor-patient conversations, freeing up doctors’ time to spend with patients. Additionally, AI could be used to provide patients with reminders and other support services.

    Overall, the video is a positive look at the potential of AI in healthcare. Topol acknowledges that there are still challenges to overcome, such as the need for more data and the need to ensure that AI is used ethically. However, he believes that AI has the potential to revolutionize healthcare and improve the lives of millions of people.

    • @AlepoRX

      December 9, 2023 at 12:57 pm

      I see what u did there haha

    • @Curious0189

      December 9, 2023 at 1:27 pm

      Written by ChatGPT?

    • @rugbybeef

      December 9, 2023 at 1:44 pm

      🤖🐂💩

    • @lochanshivaram6079

      December 9, 2023 at 1:59 pm

      Bless you

  8. @godmisfortunatechild

    December 9, 2023 at 12:16 pm

    Almost all of us are most excited by the prospect of having a superhuman doctor who actually cares about us and can personalize, in an unprecedented way, our medical care. Humans, due to their individual agendas, will never be able to offer the adequate kind of care we need.

  9. @shep6774

    December 9, 2023 at 1:17 pm

    What’s crazy is the money saved from an AI diagnosis if we can keep this in the hands of the people. My brother in law was charged $500,000 for a diagnosis before we even started talking treatment for brain cancer because it took “expert” after expert so long to figure out what was happening. And then treatment felt like it was totally spit-balled too. By experts. Expensive experts. AI in medicine should take over sooner rather than later. They can’t do worse than we’re doing now.

  10. @rugbybeef

    December 9, 2023 at 1:40 pm

    How do we incentivize AI operators to promote health even if it reduces utilization and medical billing instead of solely identifying more profitable incidentalomas to bill for treatment and monitoring of?

    Insurers have little motivation to spend on CKD patients to prevent their progression to dialysis or transplant as those outcomes are paid for by Medicare not the insurer. Will insurers’ AI systems bother to try to prevent CKD progression if the insurer AI operator has little monetary cost or risk incentive to do so? We have already seen an insurer AI system that devalued Black lives and recommended discharge because of their relative underrepresentation in the underlying insurer’s training dataset.

  11. @Adhil_parammel

    December 9, 2023 at 1:41 pm

    Ai can create super efficient fast and frugal decision trees for saving lives.

  12. @letrface_8596

    December 9, 2023 at 2:00 pm

    I miss living paycheck to paycheck…things are so messes up.

    • @thegoldentree6913

      December 9, 2023 at 4:48 pm

      Are you unemployed or an entrepreneur now?

  13. @samhouston1483

    December 9, 2023 at 2:04 pm

    I have had nothing but terrible experiences w “Drs” and the amount of time “Drs” have missed diagnoses & blown off people leading to their deaths is astounding & a crime…can’t wait for AI to take over a lot this…shameful the conduct of “Drs” these days I’m sorry to say…

  14. @plainclothesspaceman7117

    December 9, 2023 at 2:36 pm

    All of this is amazing but something jumped out at me near the end and that was the prioritisation of billing over diagnosis and the benefit to the patient (which come at the end of the benefits list). I’m not attacking the speaker – who is a great guy by all appearances. But his words suggest to me a systemically induced medical mindset that normalises the commercialisation of medical care to the extent that many doctors casually place billing as the primary concern over primary care. This is just how it seemed to me.

  15. @user-qj2gp3hj1s

    December 9, 2023 at 2:50 pm

    so how will doctors get paid more for doing less?

  16. @gleeburk

    December 9, 2023 at 3:07 pm

    First AI replaced the programmers, and I did not speak out…because I was not a programmer. Then AI replaced the doctors, and I did not speak out…because I was not a doctor. When does AI come for me?

    • @thegoldentree6913

      December 9, 2023 at 3:24 pm

      What are you?

    • @groboclone

      December 9, 2023 at 3:50 pm

      @@thegoldentree6913 they’re a disgruntled youtube commenter, a profession at high risk from AI

    • @Dogbertforpresident

      December 9, 2023 at 4:30 pm

      If an A.I. can do a better job (probably by large margins) then it would only be ethical to replace that worker.

    • @shepherd4901

      December 9, 2023 at 11:59 pm

      I am unemployed 😂😂😂

    • @michaelnurse9089

      December 10, 2023 at 2:02 pm

      We are all in the same boat. Even those who work with AI.

  17. @CrazyFoxMovies

    December 9, 2023 at 3:15 pm

    What a time to be alive

  18. @canxkoz

    December 9, 2023 at 3:32 pm

    Yes, AI can absolutely catch what doctors miss. Such a great talk by Eric Topol. Huge fan!

  19. @josephmelendez2243

    December 9, 2023 at 3:40 pm

    Dr. Royal Raymond Rife decades ago discovered the solution of every desease, even the Cancer. He invented a machine. As a result, he was killed. He said: The secret is vibration and frecuency…. But the pharmaceutical industry doesn´t want it public.

  20. @shaokhan4421

    December 9, 2023 at 4:40 pm

    In an interview, Sam Altman has said that his aim essentially for ChatGPT is for it to replace the average doctor, so essentially doctors will get wiped out early to average doctors except specialist I assume and eventually Dr completely unless there’s some pushback like how actors pushed back against AI or how video game consumers don’t support AI tech too much

    • @leeme179

      December 9, 2023 at 5:16 pm

      I don’t believe this to be true at least not in this decade simply because of liability, I don’t think any company would use AI and also take the liability if AI was wrong, so doctors for now a safe, similar to AI in self driving cars still needs a driver for insurance

    • @laurap239

      December 10, 2023 at 3:57 am

      @@leeme179 but isn’t the opposite also true? Wouldn’t the insurance company be liable if the doctors did not act on the AI’s recommendation? I imagine the future will have a doctor putting all your symptoms to Chatgpt and then giving you ‘his personal’ diagnosis

    • @shaokhan4421

      December 10, 2023 at 5:50 am

      O think initially there will be like one of you said this decade will be human + AI combos and inevitably as society adjusts AI takeover

    • @carsonhunt4642

      December 10, 2023 at 3:48 pm

      @@leeme179regular doctors don’t really do much except have you answer a couple simple questions from a list to diagnose you. Frankly don’t even need ai, a simple 20 question survey could diagnose you just as well 😂

  21. @norang7918

    December 9, 2023 at 5:31 pm

    Really interesting and amazing. Thank you for this great talk!

  22. @darinherrick9224

    December 9, 2023 at 6:20 pm

    This has been around a long time. WHEN is it going to be used everywhere???? When? When? Wheeeeeeeeen??????????

  23. @tapio_m6861

    December 9, 2023 at 6:56 pm

    Can it? Probably. Will doctors welcome AI and harness it for the benefit of their patients? No.

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      December 9, 2023 at 7:06 pm

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      December 9, 2023 at 7:07 pm

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      December 9, 2023 at 7:07 pm

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  25. @amelghrici3408

    December 9, 2023 at 7:06 pm

    SOS Gaza children and babies died no food no water many poeple died.poeple of USA stop this War please please

  26. @Kneephry

    December 9, 2023 at 8:50 pm

    A new TV series: House GPT MD

  27. @circuloviciosamente

    December 9, 2023 at 8:58 pm

    Internet was once a place of knowledge but now it is screwed intentionally for many interested people. That could happen also to those AIs. We woud need some entities that garantiee the information that feed those AIs.

    • @michaelnurse9089

      December 10, 2023 at 2:01 pm

      Your doctor has 65% of fixing your medical problem.
      The AI has 95% chance of fixing your medical problem.
      The doctor can be sued but the AI can’t.
      Pick one.

  28. @bethaniejify

    December 9, 2023 at 9:09 pm

    I love how everyone is currently trying to sell us on all the positives of AI. Nevermind all those developers who seem to be a little bit…uhhh…concernedx

  29. @IamKlaus007

    December 9, 2023 at 9:35 pm

    Until such a time as becomes unnecessary, AI is dependent on human construction. So, whatever is programmed into AI is going to be the outcome. Human anatomy and everything that can have an affect on it (detrimental or otherwise) is so complex that the medical profession still use human beings as “guinea pigs” for their learning. For AI to ‘catch what doctors miss’ implies;
    1) AI will know a lot more about us than doctors do, or
    2) the doctor in question has been remiss in his/her duty.
    AI should ALWAYS be in the service of human beings to be the most effective in our progress.

  30. @Mareloko41

    December 9, 2023 at 10:11 pm

    Anyone else notice on the picture with Andrew the time is 11:11 on the computer screen?

  31. @Novastar.SaberCombat

    December 9, 2023 at 10:48 pm

    Only for the rich.

  32. @shepherd4901

    December 9, 2023 at 11:57 pm

    I would rather prefer to do daily exercise and be a fit person than giving unnecessary hefty amount of money to clinics…❤I am a biology studen and I know that doctors are not for helping us but to be a wealthy person by choice except few real doctors who know the real meaning of humanity….❤

    • @michalwiktorow2188

      December 11, 2023 at 10:55 am

      If you speak for the US and other ‘agressive capitalistic’ economies – sure, you’re right, but ‘Don’t judge others by your own standards’.

    • @shepherd4901

      December 11, 2023 at 1:03 pm

      ​@@michalwiktorow2188 hey man, You can see this anywhere and it’s not about the standards of anyone’s country But it’s all about inflation and money driven society… We are living in almost a virtual reality which is handled by these billionaire politicians or business authorities…

      I don’t aim to make anyone feel bad but have only written general reality which almost everyone knows…❤

  33. @ahoog69

    December 10, 2023 at 1:58 am

    I would like to believe that the Doctor-A.I. relationship will take on the form of a (somewhat equal) partnership for the foreseeable future. In time, the doctor will focus more on the quality of comfort and care, while the A.I. will further accelerate its mind boggling ability to diagnose and devise personalized treatments.

  34. @warrentrout

    December 10, 2023 at 4:17 am

    It’s not either or, rather both working together

  35. @iamhammadnasir

    December 10, 2023 at 8:27 am

    I am building MedGPT and am committed to taking medical diagnosis to the next level, IA!

  36. @photobobo

    December 10, 2023 at 11:14 am

    Can AI catch what doctors screw up? Or better, can AI replace doctors entirely. Well, why not? Modern medicine is mere pedantry.

  37. @boremir3956

    December 10, 2023 at 12:33 pm

    When I try this with bing all it does is search the internet for common descriptions of the symptoms and give some general info. Absolutely useless.

  38. @user-yv4gg7jb2f

    December 10, 2023 at 1:13 pm

    The impact of Heart Attack Prediction would be crazy

  39. @Therrhd

    December 10, 2023 at 6:11 pm

    I really hope this leads to lower cost in the field

  40. @sevenkashtan

    December 10, 2023 at 7:20 pm

    yes.

  41. @mikajoel6122

    December 10, 2023 at 8:31 pm

    Amazing! This should be getting a lot more attention than it is.

  42. @dsoprano13

    December 11, 2023 at 1:38 am

    My instinct was always that the retina could provide a lot of health information even though there was no proof.

  43. @sampsonsampson

    December 11, 2023 at 4:51 am

    All I could think of this from watching too many horror stories of mis diagnosis, evil/careless/selfish nurses, doctors that drink too much. It’s like yeah. I’ll take that robot then. Maybe AI will care the next time I’m running around yelling at nurses that my daughter is coming out and they all roll their eyes like it’s old news and we have days to handle this like it’s an old email. Our doctor was late and just made jokes. MF’ers my first child is coming out of her and NOBODY is there and you guys are talking about your weekend. I get that you’re “so” over it but jesus. That sucked.

  44. @johanlarsson9805

    December 11, 2023 at 6:29 am

    Yeah, started saying this around 2014 when ANNs became better than radiologists/oncologists at seeing breast cancer. Verry well put togehter presentation! I hadn’t heard about the retinal scans at all, an area after area, field after field, it just becomes absolutly clear that the ANNs really understand the topic much deeper than any human ever could, they are frightingly intelligent.

  45. @NyteRazor

    December 11, 2023 at 8:37 am

    Hopefully by 2025 we’re all are going to be able to get a retinal scan as part of our annual exam.

  46. @loishawkeyz1246

    December 11, 2023 at 10:10 am

    Yes, AI will find what Dr. missed and what doctors did to kill people just to make a dollar in America yay for AI down with humanity

  47. @michalwiktorow2188

    December 11, 2023 at 10:45 am

    He looks at his patients pain, at his will to help them, and he – as an older clinician – can look beyond prejudice against AI. He know value of the peoples lives that he had chance to cure, or that he was sad to lose. That is visdom in an essence. We need more intelligent and senseful people like him!

  48. @PathoLogic45

    December 11, 2023 at 1:39 pm

    A bit over stretched….

  49. @Krihoe

    December 11, 2023 at 4:50 pm

    Doctors will very soon be obsolete.

  50. @bengt_axle

    December 11, 2023 at 6:49 pm

    As someone who’s had lots of medical imaging, this is fascinating. But I don’t believe this should enter medical practice at this time. It should be reserved for medical research and training. Letting a computer find lesions on an image or analyze EKG patterns can have the unintended consequence of adding too much information and complexity to a diagnosis, which will inevitably raise costs for patients and insurance companies, not to mention the cost of securing huge amounts of patient data. A medical imaging study is supposed to confirm a suspected diagnosis — not look for one. Clinician medical knowledge and intuition are essential to good practice.

    If an optometrist sees a retinopathy, they should ask about diabetes and the patients should see a family doctor, who does understand all the comorbidities that go along with it. I see AI as operating in the “back office” helping researchers find seemingly-unrelated relationships and new disease markers. Most important to understand, however, is that just because you get better at finding disease, doesn’t mean the patients will be healthier. On the contrary, USA spends the highest per capita on health, and has some of the worst outcomes. Diagnostic failure is not the cause — rather it is often patients who do not feel that their actions have an effect on their health.

  51. @bernob9770

    December 11, 2023 at 7:38 pm

    wow!!

  52. @bankuri

    December 12, 2023 at 3:40 am

    very interesting lectures, but what bothers me is that this doctor put so much emphasis on the fact that now the doctor does not need to write, and so little on the fact that you DON’T actually need a doctor. if a retina scan is able (or would be able) to catch all sorts of illnesses what do i care if a “doctor” writes it down or not.

  53. @user-or4mv3mh2j

    December 12, 2023 at 5:16 pm

    *Palestine

  54. @Yiryujin

    December 12, 2023 at 5:27 pm

    so, we are going back to era of Chinese medicine where you take pulse/ekg/ecg and history of a person and can tell rather they have hyperthyroid, diabetes, liver, and/or kidney disease.
    how amazing were our ancestors that could do all this by taking a pulse, compare to modern oriental medicine doctors that can’t.

  55. @user-rm2qj2jh4l

    December 12, 2023 at 6:19 pm

    This is so incredibly exciting! I had a misdiagnosis once, and I ended up needing to be hospitalized as a result. It’s so cool to see examples of what the benefits of AI can really be!

  56. @professoroflogic8788

    December 13, 2023 at 8:16 am

    Ai can also make you obsolete 🙂

  57. @jasoncalva

    December 13, 2023 at 10:29 am

    All of us will eventually have unlimited access to the AI Physician in our devices. Eventually being a physician will become an obsolete profession. But, so will most jobs.

  58. @siarez4992

    December 13, 2023 at 3:31 pm

    I lost a family member to a disease that could have have been diagnosed with a simple blood test and a treated with the widely available injection. Three different specialist saw her and failed to diagnose her. She suffered greatly and unnecessarily for 4 months and died a painful death while attached to a machine alone in a hospital, no visitors allowed. The tragedy of her death will forever weight heavy in my heart.
    I hope AI can help prevent things like this from happening.

  59. @JJs_playground

    December 13, 2023 at 5:05 pm

    Looks like we’re going to get the medical tricorder from Star Trek, but instead of it being a hardware device ours is AI based.

  60. @DeeneMuada

    December 14, 2023 at 3:08 am

    we allready have lifechanging peptides. just make them accessible for all people. cerebrolysin, semax, bpc 157, ghk-cu and co… its too hard to access these compounds, thats a major issue

  61. @dread69420

    December 14, 2023 at 4:43 am

    AI just doesn’t miss 99% of the finer details. That’s the beauty of it, the whole frame is its focus and its doing all the analysis on that frame before moving on to the next. Of course, it won’t be perfect but we shouldn’t let perfection be the enemy of good enough in this case, because it literally saves lives.

  62. @Neuronalchannel

    December 14, 2023 at 4:51 am

    👏🏼

  63. @czarcoma

    December 14, 2023 at 3:21 pm

    So, I guess we need to say goodby to WebMD.

  64. @mattbroderick

    December 14, 2023 at 3:32 pm

    Chat GPT does well on NEJM cases because they are prepared and structured like a physician who knows the answer… Until ChatGPT can pull terrible notes from the EMR, imaging, take a history, perform and exam, and not send needless tests on everyone I think my job is safe for now…

  65. @eastafrica1020

    December 15, 2023 at 11:43 am

    Where can I order my AI doctor?

  66. @os2171

    December 15, 2023 at 12:50 pm

    Can’t wait to stop seeing arrogant, ignorant, overpaid and incompetent medical “doctors “ without phds ignoring evidence in the lab tests (not all of them of course… about 90%) If AI can save us welcome AI!

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