【新译Y宇宙】No.62 人工智能进军医疗行业—是好事，还是坏事，抑或是二者兼有

For all the technological wonders of modern medicine, from gene-editing to fetal surgery, health care—with its fax machines and clipboards—is often stubbornly antiquated. This outdated era is slowly drawing to a close as, belatedly, the industry catches up with the artificial-intelligence (AI) revolution. And none too soon, argues Eric Topol, a cardiologist and enthusiast for digital medicine.

对于现代医学的所有技术奇迹，从基因编辑到胎儿手术，医疗保健——包括传真机和剪贴板——常常顽固地过时。这个过时的时代正在慢慢接近尾声，因为该行业已经赶上了人工智能 (AI) 革命。心脏病专家和数字医学爱好者埃里克·托波尔认为，不要太早。

Dr Topol’s vision of medicine’s future is optimistic. He thinks AI will be particularly useful for repetitive, error-prone tasks, such as sifting images, scrutinising heart traces for abnormalities or transcribing doctors’ words into patient records. It will be able to harness masses of data to work out optimal treatments (for both conditions and individuals), and improve workflows in hospitals. In short, AI is set to save time, lives and money.

Topol 博士对医学未来的展望是乐观的。他认为人工智能对于重复性、容易出错的任务特别有用，例如筛选图像、检查心脏轨迹是否有异常或将医生的话转录到患者记录中。它将能够利用大量数据来制定最佳治疗方案（针对条件和个人），并改善医院的工作流程。简而言之，人工智能将节省时间、生命和金钱。

Much of this is hypothetical—but AI is already outperforming people in a variety of narrow jobs for which it has been trained. Eventually it may be able to diagnose and treat a wider range of diseases. Even then, Dr Topol thinks, humans would oversee the algorithms, rather than being replaced by them.

其中大部分是假设性的——但人工智能已经在其接受过的各种狭隘工作中表现出色。最终它可能能够诊断和治疗更广泛的疾病。Topol 博士认为，即便如此，人类也会监督算法，而不是被算法取代。

The fear the author harbours is that AI will be used to deepen the assembly-line culture of modern medicine. If it confers a “gift of time” on doctors, he argues that this bonus should be used to prolong consultations, rather than simply speeding through them more efficiently.

作者担心的是人工智能将被用来深化现代医学的流水线文化。如果它为医生提供了“时间礼物”，他认为应该将这笔奖金用于延长咨询时间，而不是简单地加快咨询速度。

That is a fine idea, but as health swallows an ever-bigger share of national wealth, greater efficiency is exactly what is needed, at least so far as governments and insurers are concerned. Otherwise, rich societies may fail to cope with the needs of ageing and growing populations. An extra five minutes spent chatting with a patient is costly as well as valuable. The AI revolution will also empower managerial bean-counters, who will increasingly be able to calibrate and appraise every aspect of treatment. The autonomy of the doctor will inevitably be undermined, especially, perhaps, in public-health systems which are duty-bound to trim inessential costs.

这是个好主意，但随着健康在国民财富中所占的份额越来越大，提高效率正是我们所需要的，至少就政府和保险公司而言是这样。否则，富裕社会可能无法应对老龄化和人口增长的需求。多花 5 分钟与患者交谈既昂贵又有价值。人工智能革命还将赋予管理bean-counters的能力，他们将越来越能够校准和评估治疗的各个方面。医生的自主权将不可避免地受到损害，尤其是在有义务削减不必要成本的公共卫生系统中。

The Hippocratic Oath holds that there is an art to medicine as well as a science, and that “warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug”. That is not just a platitude: the patients of sympathetic physicians have been shown to fare better. As Dr Topol says, it is hard to imagine that a robot could really replace a human doctor. Yet as demand for health care outstrips the supply of human carers, the future may involve consultations on smartphones and measurements monitored by chatbots. The considerately warmed stethoscope, placed gently on a patient’s back, may become a relic of the past.

希波克拉底誓言认为医学是一门艺术，也是一门科学，“温暖、同情和理解可能胜过外科医生的刀或化学家的药物”。这不仅仅是陈词滥调：有同情心的医生的病人表现得更好。正如托波尔博士所说，很难想象机器人真的可以取代人类医生。然而，随着对医疗保健的需求超过人类护理人员的供应，未来可能会涉及智能手机咨询和聊天机器人监控的测量结果。温热的听诊器轻轻地放在病人的背上，可能会成为过去的遗物。

In the end technology may even be able to solve the empathy deficit. Japanese engineers are working on robots that simulate human presence, or sonzai-kan. A machine could never truly develop the shared humanity that helps patients heal. That doesn’t mean it cannot be faked.

最终，技术甚至可以解决移情缺陷。日本工程师正在研究模拟人类存在的机器人，即sonzai-kan。一台机器永远无法真正培养出帮助患者康复的共同人性。这并不意味着它不能被伪造。

stubbornly 固执地

repetitive 多次重复的

abnormality 异常

outperforming 胜过