Artificial intelligence enters medicine – and doctors receive new boundaries

The Israeli Medical Association has bravely declared that doctors should not become 'enslaved' by artificial intelligence. A position paper has been published, setting boundaries for AI use in medicine. Because nothing says 'we have control' like a piece of paper politely asking the unstoppable AI wave to please stop at the red rope. The phrasing itself is telling: 'enslaved' is a strong word for a profession that has spent decades outsourcing decision-making to flowcharts and lab results.

The association's aim, per the excerpt, is to 'use the technology without becoming enslaved by it.' One imagines the paper includes detailed clauses: 'The algorithm shall not prescribe narcotics without a human cosign,' 'The AI shall not override a doctor's gut feeling about a patient with atypical symptoms,' 'The robot shall not roll its eyes when the doctor ignores its recommendation.' But the fundamental problem is that AI in medicine doesn't respect position papers; it respects training data, compute budgets, and accuracy benchmarks. As we've seen in radiology and pathology, the machine doesn't need to enslave anyone—it just needs to be slightly more consistent and faster to make the human role shrink from diagnostician to something closer to a liability waiver signer.

Meanwhile, the IMA's paper will sit alongside other proud declarations of human technological supremacy, much like Macron's plea to the US to share AI while democracies regulate. It's a noble sentiment: draw boundaries, retain control, stay the master. But in the real world, hospitals in Israel and elsewhere are already deploying AI triage systems that reduce emergency room wait times, and patients are already being diagnosed by algorithms that don't tire or second-guess. The boundaries are drawn in sand, and the tide is AI. Doctors may not be enslaved, but they are certainly being nudged into irrelevance. Time for a strong cup of tea and a long look at that position paper.