Where will artificial intelligence take us?

According to Bob Wachter it’ll be well on its way to taking over the diagnostic role of the clinician, and in as little as 5 years:

In about 5 years, Dr Wachter predicted, a physician will be able to dictate a patient note into a computer, and the computer — using artificial intelligence — will review the chart and the literature and offer a likely diagnosis or care path.

I don’t believe it. The simplest and most formulaic attempt at this, computer interpretation of ECGs, has gotten us nowhere in over 40 years.

But no doubt there will be efforts to implement this sort of thing, thus furthering the epidemic of misdiagnosis.