Another job that appears to be safe from the impending AI takeover has emerged, as Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis has argued that nurses are far safer than doctors when it comes to advancements in technology.
There's been plenty of justifiable doom and gloom surrounding the world of employment in relation to artificial intelligence, as the advancements seen in LLMs have already had a damaging effect on a number of key and widespread positions.
Certain experts have already outlined the small number of jobs that are likely to remain untouched by AI in the near future – especially when artificial general intelligence (AGI) is achieved – and Bill Gates has even suggested that there's only one profession that will remain completely untouched.
Demis Hassabis, the head of Google's DeepMind AI research lab, has come in with his own bold prediction though, and it concerns the effects that tech of the future could have on jobs in the medical world.
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Why will nurses be safer than doctors when it comes to AI?
In a recent interview with WIRED, Hassabis was quizzed about the potential of AGI, especially when it comes to new jobs that will appear as a consequence of artificial intelligence developments.
In response, he outlined: "There's a lot of things that we won't want to do with a machine. A doctor could be helped by an AI tool, or you could even have an AI kind of doctor.
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"But you wouldn't want a robot nurse — there's something about the human empathy aspect of that care that's particularly humanistic."
It remains unknown quite how much AI will be able to replicate complex human processes like empathy in the future, but it's hard to see the tech and it's robotic extensions emulating the innately 'humanistic' elements of nursing that Hassabis outlines, even with a potential rise in AI butlers.
Nobody knows and understands humans better than humans themselves, so hypothetically there would be no way of advancing or improving on the nursing we currently have by replacing it with AI — much in the way that Gates emphasized the uselessness of robots infiltrating sports.
How can doctors be replaced by AI?
It's not necessarily a case of if doctors will be replaced by AI anymore, as a not insignificant percentage of medical professionals are already utilizing AI and machine learning tools to assist or perform parts of their jobs.
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One doctor on TikTok has already terrifyingly revealed how an AI tool was able to correctly identify a health issue that it took him decades to learn in a matter of seconds, so Hassabis could be right in his prediction that AI can take over the medical world.
Other experts have emphasized the regulatory hurdles that might obstruct any methods to properly replace doctors with AI though, as it's not just a question of skill and aptitude but the ability to follow the correct processes and ensure proper care for patients, which certain AI models in their current state haven't exactly shown the capacity to do all the time.