The present and, above all, future role of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine is unquestionable; We cannot ignore the relevance that this will have in our lives in the coming years... I doubt that the impact will be equally intense in all sectors. The presence of AI in certain medical specialties will be notable; surgical ones will receive, to a greater or lesser extent, assistance from AI, but will remain dependent on human action for a long time.
The biomedical branches (analysis, anatomopathology...), radiology or diagnosis will inevitably be more accessible to AI, its analytical capacity on thousands of studies will provide greater agility compared to man. Its weak points, the lack of anticipation and intuition, make it less compatible with the surgical branches in which these are basic; let's say it's infinitely easier to control bleeding if it hasn't started yet. The AI responds to evidence, it is not capable, for now, of acting in the face of an event that has not yet occurred. The conjunction experience-sensations is key for a good surgeon.
In plastic and aesthetic surgery we include one more variable: emotion. The ability to empathize, understand and analyze the patient's desire. AI can assess the aesthetics of a patient's chest, the "deformity" of the nose, or the amount of localized fat, but will it be able to understand what the patient wants? But, beyond that, will he be able to integrate both issues and establish a specific surgical strategy? The sensitivity necessary for this is, today, the exclusive property of the human being.
I have no doubt that his technical abilities can be excellent, even surpassing the precision of a surgeon. However, the amount of skin to be removed from an eyelid, the volume of the implant or the degree of tension of the scar from a tummy tuck, maximizing the result without generating suffering from the wound, are decisions that are not based on statistics, but on sensitivity, in aesthetic perception or in situ evaluation of what the patient wants. In that, the AI can't compete.
Unlike other branches, cosmetic medicine and surgery do not treat diseases, but rather healthy patients who want to be better, so the variable to learn from is not always the result itself, but the perception of it, the emotion that transmit to the patient or to you as a specialist; that is very difficult to interpret in computer language.
There is another question: how many people would be willing to enter an operating room, let themselves be anesthetized by AI and correct some aspect of their body without the slightest control from the human being? Not me, you? AI and medicine are doomed to understand each other, collaborate and grow, surgery may end up conditioned by AI in a few years, but medicine and cosmetic surgery are subject to variables that, today, are far beyond the reach of science. computer technology.
