Artificial Intelligence for Pathologists Is Not Near--It Is Here: Description of a Prototype That Can Transform How...

Pathologists' daily tasks consist of both the professional interpretation of slides and the secretarial tasks of translating these interpretations into final pathology reports, the latter of which is a time-consuming endeavor for most pathologists.

To describe an artificial intelligence that performs secretarial tasks, designated as Secretary-Mimicking Artificial Intelligence (SMILE).

The underling implementation of SMILE is a collection of computer programs that work in concert to "listen to" the voice commands and to "watch for" the changes of windows caused by slide bar code scanning; SMILE responds to these inputs by acting upon PowerPath Client windows (Sunquest Information Systems, Tucson, Arizona) and its Microsoft Word (Microsoft, Redmond, Washington) Add-In window, eventuating in the reports being typed and finalized. Secretary-Mimicking Artificial Intelligence also communicates relevant information to the pathologist via the computer speakers and message box on the screen.

Secretary-Mimicking Artificial Intelligence performs many secretarial tasks intelligently and semiautonomously, with rapidity and consistency, thus enabling pathologists to focus on slide interpretation, which results in a marked increase in productivity, decrease in errors, and reduction of stress in daily practice. Secretary-Mimicking Artificial Intelligence undergoes encounter-based learning continually, resulting in a continuous improvement in its knowledge-based intelligence.

Artificial intelligence for pathologists is both feasible and powerful. The future widespread use of artificial intelligence in our profession is certainly going to transform how we practice pathology.