In this chapter we change pace. We run through a group of different professions and offer a glimpse of the many ways in which they are changing, largely because of technology. The picture we present, although wide-ranging and varied, is not held out as comprehensive. It reflects activity only in particular parts of the world, predominantly the Anglo-American region, and at just one point in time—the middle of the second decade of the twenty- first century. In years to come, when we look back on the pages that follow, we will no doubt see, with the acuity of hindsight, that we missed some great case studies, that we included some which might better have been omitted, and that some of our exemplars no longer exist. This is to be expected. It would require many more volumes to carry out an exhaustive survey of technological change across the professions, and it would demand supernatural prescience to isolate the eventual winners. But to dwell on any particular case—success, failure, or omission—would be to misunderstand what we are trying to achieve in this chapter and through much of the book. To paraphrase the literary critic Harold Bloom, we are seeking to look beyond any particular ripple on the surface and, with a broad sweep through our chosen professions, to capture the deeper current of change that we sense is flowing below. In The Patient Will See You Now, Eric Topol, cardiologist and professor of genomics, anticipates that ‘[w]e are embarking on a time when each individual will have all their own medical data and the computing power to process it . . . from womb to tomb . . . even to prevent an illness before it happens’. There are many other commentators who are making predictions in this spirit. And the contrast with the current and long-established practice of medicine by doctors could not be starker. Traditionally, when people suspect something might be amiss with their health they book an appointment, they show up in person, they sit in one or more face-to-face interactions with individual experts, who in turn prescribe courses of action, often to be implemented by the patients once they leave.
Artificial Intelligence: The New Frontier in Surgery
