The next technological breakthrough is “Very Mass Medicine”

It is probably obvious to everyone that the twentieth century was an era of technological breakthrough thanks to MASS technologies. Mass production, mass transport, the media, at the end of the century - computerization and mobile communications.

All this is obvious mass technologies that
a) are relatively easy to scale
b) change the infrastructure and lifestyle (see how mass cars changed cities, or compare the world before the invention of mobile phones and the current world)

Perhaps one of the few things that have not yet become massive - this is medicine, or more broadly - ensuring human health. It is clear that the need for light and cheap mass medicine is no less strong than in providing a person with food and clothing, but so far medicine is still an extremely individual thing.

And this despite the attempts to unify health monitoring as much as possible and get away from the ligament - one patient, one doctor. There are massive vaccinations, and maintaining medical records that facilitate the transition from one doctor to another, and prevention.

But still - compared to other mass technologies, medicine still looks like a craft workshop against the backdrop of modern FAB . The reason is clear - all people are different, dissimilar, a good doctor should have not only experience, but also intuition (well, House, I think everyone watched).

Where to get a hundred million good diagnostic doctors?


Nowhere to get so many House. But this is one of the most obvious uses of AI, albeit limited. Work in this direction is already underway, something is even being sold, although it seems that the breakthrough is still far away.

Next - you need cheap and massive medical practitioners and massive treatment technologies. Here narrowly functional robotic surgeons should work their word, working either on the instructions of the AI, or using remote control by the surgeon-operator. And this again, far from news , though the pleasure is still very expensive.

Probably the end of this spurt will be the production of inexpensive domestic robot doctors capable of opening an abscess, treating a wound, making a blood test for sugar, giving a prescription for an antibiotic, monitoring diet restrictions, and so on. It is clear that more serious procedures will still have to be performed in the clinic, just for reasons of sterility and the cost of a universal doctor. Although, probably, it will be possible to download pirated firmware and alter it if you want to risk saving money. In general, by the way, such mass technology will have a lot of consequences, forgive the pun - both good and bad.

Of course, this sounds fantastic, but 98% of the population would also have heard about mobile phones if you told it about 30 years ago.