The AI doctor will see you soon: from assistants to autonomous practitioners

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is bringing an unprecedented evolution in human history. As it develops, the utilization of AI in clinical practice becomes one of the hot topics that attracts the attention of the medical field as well as the public. While we know that AI will be heavily involved in the medical system, a critical question is what we expect for the future AI medical doctor. To answer this question, it is important to understand that the developing patterns of any other discovery and industrialization do not fit the pattern of AI development, because it acts more like a human instead of simply being a machine or tool. Thus, AI doctors function like human doctors to provide patient-centered reasoning, intellectual judgment, and ethical decision-making rather than just mechanical data processing. Here we present such a likely development process, including current AI status, expected AI doctors, challenges, and future directions.