Pennsylvania Medical Society Affirms AI is No Substitute for Human Physicians

Last Updated: Feb 6, 2025

While the Pennsylvania Medical Society supports the use of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool in health care, it rejects the recent claims that AI as in health care is indistinguishable from a human being and can provide diagnostics as good as any physician. Physicians dedicate years of rigorous education and training to acquiring the expertise necessary for providing quality patient care. While AI can assist in certain tasks, it cannot replicate the complexity and critical thinking of the human brain.

Physicians do so much more than algorithmic diagnosis. They know their patients' medical and often personal histories. They know potential barriers to optimal treatment and care which cannot be found in a formula. Patients are not linear algorithms. Each patient is an individual with individual health care needs and social drivers of health. Physicians recognize that and provide a course of care based on the whole of the patient, not the programmed formula of an algorithm.