REASON I’M WORRIED ABOUT . ..

ROBOTIC doctors. Artificial intelligence is now to be used to spot disease: people’s genetics, medical records and lifestyles will be run through a computer, so doctors can identify patients most at risk of cancer. They will then be sent to an oncologist before signs of disease occur.

My fear is that this may encourage doctors to scrutinise their computer more closely than the patient sitting before them. This would be a disaster.

For there are times when, though tests are clear and the family history unremarkable, doctors instinctively know all is not well. Such skills can never be programmed into a computer.