Questões de Inglês

T E X T

How a Canadian Chain Is Reinventing Book Selling

By Alexandra Alter

    About a decade ago, Heather Reisman, the chief executive of Canada’s largest bookstore chain, was having tea with the novelist Margaret Atwood when Ms. Atwood inadvertently gave her an idea for a new product. Ms. Atwood announced that she planned to go home, put on a pair of cozy socks and curl up with a book. Ms. Reisman thought about how appealing that sounded. Not long after, her company, Indigo, developed its own brand of plush “reading socks.” They quickly became one of Indigo’s signature gift items.

    “Last year, all my friends got reading socks,” said Arianna Huffington, the HuffPost cofounder and a friend of Ms. Reisman’s, who also gave the socks as gifts to employees at her organization Thrive. “Most people don’t have reading socks — not like Heather’s reading socks.”

    Over the last few years, Indigo has designed dozens of other products, including beach mats, scented candles, inspirational wall art, Mason jars, crystal pillars, bento lunchboxes, herb growing kits, copper cheese knife sets, stemless champagne flutes, throw pillows and scarves.

    It may seem strange for a bookstore chain to be developing and selling artisanal soup bowls and organic cotton baby onesies. But Indigo’s approach seems not only novel but crucial to its success and longevity. The superstore concept, with hulking retail spaces stocking 100,000 titles, has become increasingly hard to sustain in the era of online retail, when it’s impossible to match Amazon’s vast selection.

    Indigo is experimenting with a new model, positioning itself as a “cultural department store” where customers who wander in to browse through books often end up lingering as they impulsively shop for cashmere slippers and crystal facial rollers, or a knife set to go with a new Paleo cookbook. Over the past few years, Ms. Reisman has reinvented Indigo as a Goop-like, curated lifestyle brand, with sections devoted to food, health and wellness, and home décor.

    Ms. Reisman is now importing Indigo’s approach to the United States. Last year, Indigo opened its first American outpost, at a luxury mall in Millburn, N.J., and she eventually plans to open a cluster of Indigos in the Northeast. Indigo’s ascendance is all the more notable given the challenges that big bookstore chains have faced in the United States. Borders, which once had more than 650 locations, filed for bankruptcy in 2011. Barnes & Noble now operates 627 stores, down from 720 in 2010, and the company put itself up for sale last year. Lately, it has been opening smaller stores, including an 8,300-square-foot outlet in Fairfax County, Va.

    “Cross-merchandising is Retail 101, and it’s hard to do in a typical bookstore,” said Peter Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex Group, which analyzes the book industry. “Indigo found a way to create an extra aura around the bookbuying experience, by creating a physical extension of what you’re reading about.”

    The atmosphere is unabashedly intimate, cozy and feminine — an aesthetic choice that also makes commercial sense, given that women account for some 60 percent of book buyers. A section called “The Joy of the Table” stocks Indigobrand ceramics, glassware and acacia wood serving platters with the cookbooks. The home décor section has pillows and throws, woven baskets, vases and scented candles. There’s a subsection called “In Her Words,” which features idea-driven books and memoirs by women. An area labeled “A Room of Her Own” looks like a lush dressing room, with vegan leather purses, soft gray shawls, a velvet chair, scarves and journals alongside art, design and fashion books.

    Books still account for just over 50 percent of Indigo’s sales and remain the central draw; the New Jersey store stocks around 55,000 titles. But they also serve another purpose: providing a window into consumers’ interests, hobbies, desires and anxieties, which makes it easier to develop and sell related products.

    Publishing executives, who have watched with growing alarm as Barnes & Noble has struggled, have responded enthusiastically to Ms. Reisman’s strategy. “Heather pioneered and perfected the art of integrating books and nonbook products,” Markus Dohle, the chief executive of Penguin Random House, said in an email.

    Ms. Reisman has made herself and her own tastes and interests central to the brand. The front of the New Jersey store features a section labeled “Heather’s Picks,” with a display table covered with dozens of titles. A sign identifies her as the chain’s “founder, C.E.O., Chief Booklover and the Heather in Heather’s Picks.” She appears regularly at author signings and store events, and has interviewed prominent authors like Malcolm Gladwell, James Comey, Sally Field, Bill Clinton and Nora Ephron.

    When Ms. Reisman opened the first Indigo store in Burlington, Ontario, in 1997, she had already run her own consulting firm and later served as president of a soft drink and beverage company, Cott. Still, bookselling is an idiosyncratic industry, and many questioned whether Indigo could compete with Canada’s biggest bookseller, Chapters. Skepticism dissolved a few years later when Indigo merged with Chapters, inheriting its fleet of national stores. The company now has more than 200 outlets across Canada, including 89 “superstores.” Indigo opened its first revamped concept store in 2016.

    The new approach has proved lucrative: In its 2017 fiscal year, the company’s revenue exceeded $1 billion Canadian for the first time. In its 2018 fiscal year, Indigo reported a revenue increase of nearly $60 million Canadian over the previous year, making it the most profitable year in the chain’s history.

    The company’s dominance in Canada doesn’t guarantee it will thrive in the United States, where it has to compete not only with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but with a resurgent wave of independent booksellers. After years of decline, independent stores have rebounded, with some 2,470 locations, up from 1,651 a decade ago, according to the American Booksellers Association. And Amazon has expanded into the physical retail market, with around 20 bookstores across the United States.

    Ms. Reisman acknowledges that the company faces challenges as it expands southward. Still, she’s optimistic, and is already scouting locations for a second store near New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01

T E X T

How a Canadian Chain Is Reinventing Book Selling

By Alexandra Alter

    About a decade ago, Heather Reisman, the chief executive of Canada’s largest bookstore chain, was having tea with the novelist Margaret Atwood when Ms. Atwood inadvertently gave her an idea for a new product. Ms. Atwood announced that she planned to go home, put on a pair of cozy socks and curl up with a book. Ms. Reisman thought about how appealing that sounded. Not long after, her company, Indigo, developed its own brand of plush “reading socks.” They quickly became one of Indigo’s signature gift items.

    “Last year, all my friends got reading socks,” said Arianna Huffington, the HuffPost cofounder and a friend of Ms. Reisman’s, who also gave the socks as gifts to employees at her organization Thrive. “Most people don’t have reading socks — not like Heather’s reading socks.”

    Over the last few years, Indigo has designed dozens of other products, including beach mats, scented candles, inspirational wall art, Mason jars, crystal pillars, bento lunchboxes, herb growing kits, copper cheese knife sets, stemless champagne flutes, throw pillows and scarves.

    It may seem strange for a bookstore chain to be developing and selling artisanal soup bowls and organic cotton baby onesies. But Indigo’s approach seems not only novel but crucial to its success and longevity. The superstore concept, with hulking retail spaces stocking 100,000 titles, has become increasingly hard to sustain in the era of online retail, when it’s impossible to match Amazon’s vast selection.

    Indigo is experimenting with a new model, positioning itself as a “cultural department store” where customers who wander in to browse through books often end up lingering as they impulsively shop for cashmere slippers and crystal facial rollers, or a knife set to go with a new Paleo cookbook. Over the past few years, Ms. Reisman has reinvented Indigo as a Goop-like, curated lifestyle brand, with sections devoted to food, health and wellness, and home décor.

    Ms. Reisman is now importing Indigo’s approach to the United States. Last year, Indigo opened its first American outpost, at a luxury mall in Millburn, N.J., and she eventually plans to open a cluster of Indigos in the Northeast. Indigo’s ascendance is all the more notable given the challenges that big bookstore chains have faced in the United States. Borders, which once had more than 650 locations, filed for bankruptcy in 2011. Barnes & Noble now operates 627 stores, down from 720 in 2010, and the company put itself up for sale last year. Lately, it has been opening smaller stores, including an 8,300-square-foot outlet in Fairfax County, Va.

    “Cross-merchandising is Retail 101, and it’s hard to do in a typical bookstore,” said Peter Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex Group, which analyzes the book industry. “Indigo found a way to create an extra aura around the bookbuying experience, by creating a physical extension of what you’re reading about.”

    The atmosphere is unabashedly intimate, cozy and feminine — an aesthetic choice that also makes commercial sense, given that women account for some 60 percent of book buyers. A section called “The Joy of the Table” stocks Indigobrand ceramics, glassware and acacia wood serving platters with the cookbooks. The home décor section has pillows and throws, woven baskets, vases and scented candles. There’s a subsection called “In Her Words,” which features idea-driven books and memoirs by women. An area labeled “A Room of Her Own” looks like a lush dressing room, with vegan leather purses, soft gray shawls, a velvet chair, scarves and journals alongside art, design and fashion books.

    Books still account for just over 50 percent of Indigo’s sales and remain the central draw; the New Jersey store stocks around 55,000 titles. But they also serve another purpose: providing a window into consumers’ interests, hobbies, desires and anxieties, which makes it easier to develop and sell related products.

    Publishing executives, who have watched with growing alarm as Barnes & Noble has struggled, have responded enthusiastically to Ms. Reisman’s strategy. “Heather pioneered and perfected the art of integrating books and nonbook products,” Markus Dohle, the chief executive of Penguin Random House, said in an email.

    Ms. Reisman has made herself and her own tastes and interests central to the brand. The front of the New Jersey store features a section labeled “Heather’s Picks,” with a display table covered with dozens of titles. A sign identifies her as the chain’s “founder, C.E.O., Chief Booklover and the Heather in Heather’s Picks.” She appears regularly at author signings and store events, and has interviewed prominent authors like Malcolm Gladwell, James Comey, Sally Field, Bill Clinton and Nora Ephron.

    When Ms. Reisman opened the first Indigo store in Burlington, Ontario, in 1997, she had already run her own consulting firm and later served as president of a soft drink and beverage company, Cott. Still, bookselling is an idiosyncratic industry, and many questioned whether Indigo could compete with Canada’s biggest bookseller, Chapters. Skepticism dissolved a few years later when Indigo merged with Chapters, inheriting its fleet of national stores. The company now has more than 200 outlets across Canada, including 89 “superstores.” Indigo opened its first revamped concept store in 2016.

    The new approach has proved lucrative: In its 2017 fiscal year, the company’s revenue exceeded $1 billion Canadian for the first time. In its 2018 fiscal year, Indigo reported a revenue increase of nearly $60 million Canadian over the previous year, making it the most profitable year in the chain’s history.

    The company’s dominance in Canada doesn’t guarantee it will thrive in the United States, where it has to compete not only with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but with a resurgent wave of independent booksellers. After years of decline, independent stores have rebounded, with some 2,470 locations, up from 1,651 a decade ago, according to the American Booksellers Association. And Amazon has expanded into the physical retail market, with around 20 bookstores across the United States.

    Ms. Reisman acknowledges that the company faces challenges as it expands southward. Still, she’s optimistic, and is already scouting locations for a second store near New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01

T E X T

How a Canadian Chain Is Reinventing Book Selling

By Alexandra Alter

    About a decade ago, Heather Reisman, the chief executive of Canada’s largest bookstore chain, was having tea with the novelist Margaret Atwood when Ms. Atwood inadvertently gave her an idea for a new product. Ms. Atwood announced that she planned to go home, put on a pair of cozy socks and curl up with a book. Ms. Reisman thought about how appealing that sounded. Not long after, her company, Indigo, developed its own brand of plush “reading socks.” They quickly became one of Indigo’s signature gift items.

    “Last year, all my friends got reading socks,” said Arianna Huffington, the HuffPost cofounder and a friend of Ms. Reisman’s, who also gave the socks as gifts to employees at her organization Thrive. “Most people don’t have reading socks — not like Heather’s reading socks.”

    Over the last few years, Indigo has designed dozens of other products, including beach mats, scented candles, inspirational wall art, Mason jars, crystal pillars, bento lunchboxes, herb growing kits, copper cheese knife sets, stemless champagne flutes, throw pillows and scarves.

    It may seem strange for a bookstore chain to be developing and selling artisanal soup bowls and organic cotton baby onesies. But Indigo’s approach seems not only novel but crucial to its success and longevity. The superstore concept, with hulking retail spaces stocking 100,000 titles, has become increasingly hard to sustain in the era of online retail, when it’s impossible to match Amazon’s vast selection.

    Indigo is experimenting with a new model, positioning itself as a “cultural department store” where customers who wander in to browse through books often end up lingering as they impulsively shop for cashmere slippers and crystal facial rollers, or a knife set to go with a new Paleo cookbook. Over the past few years, Ms. Reisman has reinvented Indigo as a Goop-like, curated lifestyle brand, with sections devoted to food, health and wellness, and home décor.

    Ms. Reisman is now importing Indigo’s approach to the United States. Last year, Indigo opened its first American outpost, at a luxury mall in Millburn, N.J., and she eventually plans to open a cluster of Indigos in the Northeast. Indigo’s ascendance is all the more notable given the challenges that big bookstore chains have faced in the United States. Borders, which once had more than 650 locations, filed for bankruptcy in 2011. Barnes & Noble now operates 627 stores, down from 720 in 2010, and the company put itself up for sale last year. Lately, it has been opening smaller stores, including an 8,300-square-foot outlet in Fairfax County, Va.

    “Cross-merchandising is Retail 101, and it’s hard to do in a typical bookstore,” said Peter Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex Group, which analyzes the book industry. “Indigo found a way to create an extra aura around the bookbuying experience, by creating a physical extension of what you’re reading about.”

    The atmosphere is unabashedly intimate, cozy and feminine — an aesthetic choice that also makes commercial sense, given that women account for some 60 percent of book buyers. A section called “The Joy of the Table” stocks Indigobrand ceramics, glassware and acacia wood serving platters with the cookbooks. The home décor section has pillows and throws, woven baskets, vases and scented candles. There’s a subsection called “In Her Words,” which features idea-driven books and memoirs by women. An area labeled “A Room of Her Own” looks like a lush dressing room, with vegan leather purses, soft gray shawls, a velvet chair, scarves and journals alongside art, design and fashion books.

    Books still account for just over 50 percent of Indigo’s sales and remain the central draw; the New Jersey store stocks around 55,000 titles. But they also serve another purpose: providing a window into consumers’ interests, hobbies, desires and anxieties, which makes it easier to develop and sell related products.

    Publishing executives, who have watched with growing alarm as Barnes & Noble has struggled, have responded enthusiastically to Ms. Reisman’s strategy. “Heather pioneered and perfected the art of integrating books and nonbook products,” Markus Dohle, the chief executive of Penguin Random House, said in an email.

    Ms. Reisman has made herself and her own tastes and interests central to the brand. The front of the New Jersey store features a section labeled “Heather’s Picks,” with a display table covered with dozens of titles. A sign identifies her as the chain’s “founder, C.E.O., Chief Booklover and the Heather in Heather’s Picks.” She appears regularly at author signings and store events, and has interviewed prominent authors like Malcolm Gladwell, James Comey, Sally Field, Bill Clinton and Nora Ephron.

    When Ms. Reisman opened the first Indigo store in Burlington, Ontario, in 1997, she had already run her own consulting firm and later served as president of a soft drink and beverage company, Cott. Still, bookselling is an idiosyncratic industry, and many questioned whether Indigo could compete with Canada’s biggest bookseller, Chapters. Skepticism dissolved a few years later when Indigo merged with Chapters, inheriting its fleet of national stores. The company now has more than 200 outlets across Canada, including 89 “superstores.” Indigo opened its first revamped concept store in 2016.

    The new approach has proved lucrative: In its 2017 fiscal year, the company’s revenue exceeded $1 billion Canadian for the first time. In its 2018 fiscal year, Indigo reported a revenue increase of nearly $60 million Canadian over the previous year, making it the most profitable year in the chain’s history.

    The company’s dominance in Canada doesn’t guarantee it will thrive in the United States, where it has to compete not only with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but with a resurgent wave of independent booksellers. After years of decline, independent stores have rebounded, with some 2,470 locations, up from 1,651 a decade ago, according to the American Booksellers Association. And Amazon has expanded into the physical retail market, with around 20 bookstores across the United States.

    Ms. Reisman acknowledges that the company faces challenges as it expands southward. Still, she’s optimistic, and is already scouting locations for a second store near New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01

5 Reasons Why Artificial Intelligence Won’t Replace Physicians

    Although many signs are pointing towards
the fact that A.I. will completely move the world of
medicine, and many other technologies will also have
a transformative effect on the industry, stating that the
[5] majority of medical professionals will disappear, is
fearmongering and irresponsible.
    According to a report by Carl Benedikt Frey and
Michael A. Osborne from the University of Oxford,
medical transcriptionists, medical records and health
[10] information technicians and medical secretaries are
the most likely jobs to be computerized in the future,
but physicians and surgeons have a 0.42 percent
chance for their professions being automated.
    Moreover, A.I. will transform the meaning of what
[15] it means to be a doctor: some tasks will disappear,
while others will be added to the work routine. However,
there will never be a situation where the embodiment
of automation, either a robot or an algorithm will take
the place of a doctor. Let me tell you five reasons why.

[20]     1) We cannot replace empathy
    Even if the array of technologies will offer brilliant
solutions, it would be difficult for them to mimic
empathy. Why? Because at the core of empathy, there
is the process of building trust: listening to the other
[25] person, paying attention to their needs, expressing
the feeling of compassion and responding in a manner
that the other person knows they were understood.
    At present, you would not trust a robot or a
smart algorithm with a life-altering decision or even
[30] with a decision whether or not to take painkillers, for
that matter. But we might never be able to imagine
healthcare without human empathy. We will need
doctors holding our hands while telling us about a
life-changing diagnosis, their guide through therapy
[35] and their overall support. An algorithm cannot replace
that. Ever

    2) Physicians have a non-linear working
method
    There was an episode in House M.D. where
[40] the team couldn’t figure out how a young boy could
have been poisoned. They considered many options:
drugs, food poisoning, pesticide poisoning. For
every possible diagnosis, they suggested a different
treatment option. Each one of them made the patient
[45] worse – until they figured out, by accident, that the
boy picked up phosmet, a type of insecticide from the
jeans that he bought from a street vendor who kept
the trousers in a truck. The boy didn’t wash the piece
of clothing before wearing it, that’s how his skin could
[50] absorb the poison.

    No algorithm could have made that diagnosis.
Although data, measurements and quantitative
analytics are a crucial part of a doctor’s work, setting
up a diagnosis and treating a patient are not linear

[55] processes. It requires creativity and problem-solving
skills that algorithms and robots will never have.
    3) Complex digital technologies require
competent professionals
    More and more sophisticated digital health
[60] solutions will require the competence of qualified
medical professionals, no matter whether it’s
about robotics or A.I. Take the example of the most
commonly known surgical robot, the da Vinci Surgical
System. It features a magnified 3D high-definition
[65] vision system and tiny wristed instruments that bend
and rotate far greater than the human hand. However,
surgeons have to learn how to operate it, and it takes
practice to master it.
    Likewise, look at IBM Watson. Its unique program
[70] for oncologists provides clinicians evidence-based
treatment options. Nonetheless, it’s only doctors
together with their patients who can choose the
treatment, and only physicians can evaluate whether
the smart algorithm came up with potentially useful
[75] suggestions. No robot or algorithm could clearly
interpret complex, multi-layered challenges —
involving the psyche. While they will provide the data,
interpretation will always remain a human territory

    4) There will always be tasks algorithms and
[80] robots can never complete
    Physicians, nurses and other members of the
medical staff have plenty of cumbersome monotonous
and repetitive tasks to complete every single day.
However, there are responsibilities and duties which
[85] technologies cannot perform. While IBM Watson can
sift through millions of pages of documents in seconds,
it will never be able to do the Heimlich maneuver.
There will always be tasks where humans will be
faster, more reliable — or cheaper than technology.
[90]     5) It has never been tech vs. human
    The consistent and constant enemy image
building should stop once and for all. It has never
been technology versus humans since technological
innovations always serve the purpose to help people.
[95] We are playing on the same team. No matter whether
it’s A.I., robotics, augmented or virtual reality, we
should accept that they have a massive influence on
the way healthcare operates, and then start utilizing
their power.
[100]     Collaboration between humans and technology is
the ultimate response. The Medical Futurist believes
that this is the perfect example for the coming decades.
Technology will help bring medical professionals
towards a more efficient, less error-prone and more
[105] seamless healthcare. Our team insists on the usage
of digital tools as we are confident that if utilized in
the right way — ethical and legal concerns NOT set
aside — the physician will have more time for the
patient, the doctor can enjoy his work and healthcare
[110] will move into an overall positive direction.

Available at: http://medicalfuturist.com/5-reasons-artifi cial- -intelligence-wont-replace-physicians. Retrieved on: June 30, 2018. Adapted

5 Reasons Why Artificial Intelligence Won’t Replace Physicians

    Although many signs are pointing towards
the fact that A.I. will completely move the world of
medicine, and many other technologies will also have
a transformative effect on the industry, stating that the
[5] majority of medical professionals will disappear, is
fearmongering and irresponsible.
    According to a report by Carl Benedikt Frey and
Michael A. Osborne from the University of Oxford,
medical transcriptionists, medical records and health
[10] information technicians and medical secretaries are
the most likely jobs to be computerized in the future,
but physicians and surgeons have a 0.42 percent
chance for their professions being automated.
    Moreover, A.I. will transform the meaning of what
[15] it means to be a doctor: some tasks will disappear,
while others will be added to the work routine. However,
there will never be a situation where the embodiment
of automation, either a robot or an algorithm will take
the place of a doctor. Let me tell you five reasons why.

[20]     1) We cannot replace empathy
    Even if the array of technologies will offer brilliant
solutions, it would be difficult for them to mimic
empathy. Why? Because at the core of empathy, there
is the process of building trust: listening to the other
[25] person, paying attention to their needs, expressing
the feeling of compassion and responding in a manner
that the other person knows they were understood.
    At present, you would not trust a robot or a
smart algorithm with a life-altering decision or even
[30] with a decision whether or not to take painkillers, for
that matter. But we might never be able to imagine
healthcare without human empathy. We will need
doctors holding our hands while telling us about a
life-changing diagnosis, their guide through therapy
[35] and their overall support. An algorithm cannot replace
that. Ever

    2) Physicians have a non-linear working
method
    There was an episode in House M.D. where
[40] the team couldn’t figure out how a young boy could
have been poisoned. They considered many options:
drugs, food poisoning, pesticide poisoning. For
every possible diagnosis, they suggested a different
treatment option. Each one of them made the patient
[45] worse – until they figured out, by accident, that the
boy picked up phosmet, a type of insecticide from the
jeans that he bought from a street vendor who kept
the trousers in a truck. The boy didn’t wash the piece
of clothing before wearing it, that’s how his skin could
[50] absorb the poison.

    No algorithm could have made that diagnosis.
Although data, measurements and quantitative
analytics are a crucial part of a doctor’s work, setting
up a diagnosis and treating a patient are not linear

[55] processes. It requires creativity and problem-solving
skills that algorithms and robots will never have.
    3) Complex digital technologies require
competent professionals
    More and more sophisticated digital health
[60] solutions will require the competence of qualified
medical professionals, no matter whether it’s
about robotics or A.I. Take the example of the most
commonly known surgical robot, the da Vinci Surgical
System. It features a magnified 3D high-definition
[65] vision system and tiny wristed instruments that bend
and rotate far greater than the human hand. However,
surgeons have to learn how to operate it, and it takes
practice to master it.
    Likewise, look at IBM Watson. Its unique program
[70] for oncologists provides clinicians evidence-based
treatment options. Nonetheless, it’s only doctors
together with their patients who can choose the
treatment, and only physicians can evaluate whether
the smart algorithm came up with potentially useful
[75] suggestions. No robot or algorithm could clearly
interpret complex, multi-layered challenges —
involving the psyche. While they will provide the data,
interpretation will always remain a human territory

    4) There will always be tasks algorithms and
[80] robots can never complete
    Physicians, nurses and other members of the
medical staff have plenty of cumbersome monotonous
and repetitive tasks to complete every single day.
However, there are responsibilities and duties which
[85] technologies cannot perform. While IBM Watson can
sift through millions of pages of documents in seconds,
it will never be able to do the Heimlich maneuver.
There will always be tasks where humans will be
faster, more reliable — or cheaper than technology.
[90]     5) It has never been tech vs. human
    The consistent and constant enemy image
building should stop once and for all. It has never
been technology versus humans since technological
innovations always serve the purpose to help people.
[95] We are playing on the same team. No matter whether
it’s A.I., robotics, augmented or virtual reality, we
should accept that they have a massive influence on
the way healthcare operates, and then start utilizing
their power.
[100]     Collaboration between humans and technology is
the ultimate response. The Medical Futurist believes
that this is the perfect example for the coming decades.
Technology will help bring medical professionals
towards a more efficient, less error-prone and more
[105] seamless healthcare. Our team insists on the usage
of digital tools as we are confident that if utilized in
the right way — ethical and legal concerns NOT set
aside — the physician will have more time for the
patient, the doctor can enjoy his work and healthcare
[110] will move into an overall positive direction.

Available at: http://medicalfuturist.com/5-reasons-artifi cial- -intelligence-wont-replace-physicians. Retrieved on: June 30, 2018. Adapted

5 Reasons Why Artificial Intelligence Won’t Replace Physicians

    Although many signs are pointing towards
the fact that A.I. will completely move the world of
medicine, and many other technologies will also have
a transformative effect on the industry, stating that the
[5] majority of medical professionals will disappear, is
fearmongering and irresponsible.
    According to a report by Carl Benedikt Frey and
Michael A. Osborne from the University of Oxford,
medical transcriptionists, medical records and health
[10] information technicians and medical secretaries are
the most likely jobs to be computerized in the future,
but physicians and surgeons have a 0.42 percent
chance for their professions being automated.
    Moreover, A.I. will transform the meaning of what
[15] it means to be a doctor: some tasks will disappear,
while others will be added to the work routine. However,
there will never be a situation where the embodiment
of automation, either a robot or an algorithm will take
the place of a doctor. Let me tell you five reasons why.

[20]     1) We cannot replace empathy
    Even if the array of technologies will offer brilliant
solutions, it would be difficult for them to mimic
empathy. Why? Because at the core of empathy, there
is the process of building trust: listening to the other
[25] person, paying attention to their needs, expressing
the feeling of compassion and responding in a manner
that the other person knows they were understood.
    At present, you would not trust a robot or a
smart algorithm with a life-altering decision or even
[30] with a decision whether or not to take painkillers, for
that matter. But we might never be able to imagine
healthcare without human empathy. We will need
doctors holding our hands while telling us about a
life-changing diagnosis, their guide through therapy
[35] and their overall support. An algorithm cannot replace
that. Ever

    2) Physicians have a non-linear working
method
    There was an episode in House M.D. where
[40] the team couldn’t figure out how a young boy could
have been poisoned. They considered many options:
drugs, food poisoning, pesticide poisoning. For
every possible diagnosis, they suggested a different
treatment option. Each one of them made the patient
[45] worse – until they figured out, by accident, that the
boy picked up phosmet, a type of insecticide from the
jeans that he bought from a street vendor who kept
the trousers in a truck. The boy didn’t wash the piece
of clothing before wearing it, that’s how his skin could
[50] absorb the poison.

    No algorithm could have made that diagnosis.
Although data, measurements and quantitative
analytics are a crucial part of a doctor’s work, setting
up a diagnosis and treating a patient are not linear

[55] processes. It requires creativity and problem-solving
skills that algorithms and robots will never have.
    3) Complex digital technologies require
competent professionals
    More and more sophisticated digital health
[60] solutions will require the competence of qualified
medical professionals, no matter whether it’s
about robotics or A.I. Take the example of the most
commonly known surgical robot, the da Vinci Surgical
System. It features a magnified 3D high-definition
[65] vision system and tiny wristed instruments that bend
and rotate far greater than the human hand. However,
surgeons have to learn how to operate it, and it takes
practice to master it.
    Likewise, look at IBM Watson. Its unique program
[70] for oncologists provides clinicians evidence-based
treatment options. Nonetheless, it’s only doctors
together with their patients who can choose the
treatment, and only physicians can evaluate whether
the smart algorithm came up with potentially useful
[75] suggestions. No robot or algorithm could clearly
interpret complex, multi-layered challenges —
involving the psyche. While they will provide the data,
interpretation will always remain a human territory

    4) There will always be tasks algorithms and
[80] robots can never complete
    Physicians, nurses and other members of the
medical staff have plenty of cumbersome monotonous
and repetitive tasks to complete every single day.
However, there are responsibilities and duties which
[85] technologies cannot perform. While IBM Watson can
sift through millions of pages of documents in seconds,
it will never be able to do the Heimlich maneuver.
There will always be tasks where humans will be
faster, more reliable — or cheaper than technology.
[90]     5) It has never been tech vs. human
    The consistent and constant enemy image
building should stop once and for all. It has never
been technology versus humans since technological
innovations always serve the purpose to help people.
[95] We are playing on the same team. No matter whether
it’s A.I., robotics, augmented or virtual reality, we
should accept that they have a massive influence on
the way healthcare operates, and then start utilizing
their power.
[100]     Collaboration between humans and technology is
the ultimate response. The Medical Futurist believes
that this is the perfect example for the coming decades.
Technology will help bring medical professionals
towards a more efficient, less error-prone and more
[105] seamless healthcare. Our team insists on the usage
of digital tools as we are confident that if utilized in
the right way — ethical and legal concerns NOT set
aside — the physician will have more time for the
patient, the doctor can enjoy his work and healthcare
[110] will move into an overall positive direction.

Available at: http://medicalfuturist.com/5-reasons-artifi cial- -intelligence-wont-replace-physicians. Retrieved on: June 30, 2018. Adapted