Artificial intelligence will reduce the need for clinical medical physicists

In 2011, IBM’s supercomputer Watson defeated the former human winners and won the first prize on Jeopardy! game. It has created an overly publicized attention on machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Early this year, Google AlphaGo has marked a major breakthrough in AI by winning the first game against the world’s best champion human player in the world’s most complex game, the ancient Chinese Go game. With no doubt, the interests in AI and its related products had reached a global frenzy. As scientists advance in technology, a concern of job security has risen up: will robots take our jobs? IBM Watson has evolved from a “question answering machine” to a highly intelligent “cognitive diagnostic engine” or a “decision support system” over the past 6 yr. Based on Carl Frey and his collaborators, future family health centers may transition to a team of nurse practitioners with the support of Watson Health and overseen by one single doctor. Will AI technology also marginalize medical physicists in the near future? In this series, we have Dr. Xiaoli Tang arguing for the proposition that “AI will reduce the need for clinical medical physicists” and Dr. Brian Wang arguing against it. Dr. Xiaoli Tang received a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She then did her postdoctoral training in Medical Physics at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of California at San Diego. She previously worked at the University of North Carolina and now is working as an Assistant Attending and chief physicist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Westchester regional site. She is an expert in motion management, Deep Inspiration Breath Hold (DIBH) for left-sided breast cancer, and machine learning algorithms on medical physic applications. She is interested in developing related clinical trials, and bringing new technology to the clinic. She is a member of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), and the American Society for Radiation Oncology. Dr. Brian Wang received his PhD in nuclear engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY in 2005. He currently works at University of Louisville as the chief of physics and medical physics residency director. Dr. Wang is an associate editor for the JACMP. His research interests include motion management, image guidance, and SRS/SBRT. Dr. Wang has been involved with the AAPM Spring Clinical Meeting and its predecessor ACMP annual meeting as a program director or the subcommittee chair for 8 yr. Dr. Wang serves on several committees at ASTRO, RSS, and ABR.