AI promises to make healthcare quicker, more precise, and error-free. To the degree that it replaces doctors and nurses, it portends a massive shift in medicine that seems to come every 30 years, when people are so overwhelmed by the burden of their own technological creations, they need every iota of their strength to adjust. Once again, with the advent of AI, advancements promise to put healthcare on an entirely new footing and, once again, the inevitable backlash will be there.
So it was in the 1960s, when new medical technologies and procedures, such as home dialysis machines and coronary artery bypass surgery, improved life, and yet, during this same period, the medical profession’s reputation plummeted, as patients complained that doctors had grown cold and impersonal. So it was in the 1990s, when the rise of managed care promised greater efficiency at less cost, and a ‘win-win’ strategy anchored in preventive medicine, led to a patient rebellion against being treated like cattle, including their inability to choose their own doctor, and rushed visits to practitioners ‘on the plan’.
Now, in the 2020s, the stage is set for outrage, yet again. AI promises to elevate healthcare; but, to the degree that it replaces doctors and nurses, it also threatens to depersonalise patients and to wash off their distinctive colours until everyone has the same drab tint. In the crucible that looms, patients are going to rebel. And it is in the arena of organ donation, where they face death by machine, that they are likely to baulk loudest, and first.
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