Patients with cancer appear to be cautiously open to accepting artificial intelligence (AI)-powered medical robots, provided that their role is complementary to human-led care instead of a substitution for it, according to a study recently published in JMIR Cancer.
By the end of 2025, studies estimate that nearly a quarter of million new cancer cases would have been diagnosed in Canada alone, with nearly a quarter of these being breast cancer and prostate cancer. Timely medical care is needed to optimize outcomes, but a shortage of healthcare providers makes this a challenge.
AI-powered robots have been proposed as an option to help fill these gaps in care. AI is already in use in diagnostic imaging and the development of decision-making algorithms. As such, experts believe that the role of AI in medical care will only grow in the years ahead.
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Researchers sought to gauge how the public viewed this new technology as a means to complement existing oncology care, from screening to diagnosis to treatment. They recruited participants from breast and prostate cancer clinics between May and November 2022, in which selected candidates were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview approximately an hour in length in which the topic of discussion was broached. Two interviews were conducted approximately two weeks apart.
A total of 15 participants took part in this exercise. A number of themes emerged. For example, participants expressed concern at the relative paucity of information regarding how these AI-powered services worked, whether these tools would compromise human interaction and compassion, the extent of their reliability, and their capacity to handle situations in which patients are at their most vulnerable. However, there were also hopes that this technology may improve care by streamlining services and reducing waiting times.
“The findings reveal a cautious optimism among patients,” the authors wrote. “Patients expressed a desire for AI to complement, rather than replace, human judgment, ensuring that final decisions remain in the hands of experienced health care providers.”
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