Technological enthusiasm leads to thinking about medical robots after the first machine has passed the written exam to become a physician.
The iFlytek robot he has passed the written exam that Chinese doctors do to be able to practice the profession. It is a test in which future physicians have to test their knowledge and the application of them.
The score obtained by the iFlytek robot was 456 points, 96 more than required for the pass. Thus, the artificial intelligence of the machine shows that you have the knowledge to become a doctor. It is able to capture relevant information about the patient and analyze it to make an initial diagnosis.
The manufacturer of the machine assures that the intention is not to replace doctors, although after the success in the examination it is difficult to abstract from the idea future doctors robots. However, the goal is support the work of doctors to improve the efficiency of treatments.
It is about a task similar to that already done by IBM Watson in some hospitals in the United States. The supercomputer supports doctors in the diagnosis of cancer and advises them when choosing treatment. This is done with tons of data, which have previously trained the machine.
The iFlytek system is dedicated to doing something similar, but not only with cancer. It also does with general medicine. At the moment the company is carrying out a pilot in the Provincial Hospital of Anhui (in the eastern part of China) to check how artificial intelligence behaves by advising doctors in real cases.
The commercial launch of the system, however, will not take place until March 2018. After all, and although his job is as a counselor, the robot touches a delicate area, such as health. For now the company already it has 460,000 developers as partners , which enrich your AI platform.
And is that iFlytek is a company that has been involved in the world of artificial intelligence for some time. So it’s no surprise that it’s one of their products that opens the way for artificial intelligence in China. The project can be framed in a much broader one, the one recently announced by the Chinese government to build an AI industry worth $ 150 billion by 2030.
Although there is another motivation for the iFlytek system. In China there is a shortage of doctors. They do not leave the faculties so much as to meet the needs of the population. A situation that is exacerbated in rural areas. So artificial intelligence could speed up queries and bridge this gap.
Images: DarkoStojanovic, sasint
