Artificial Intelligence in Facial Plastic Surgery

Artificial intelligence (AI) seems to be portrayed in the media in one of two ways:

1. AI is portrayed as a solution to almost all the world’s problems, or
2. AI is portrayed as the source of destruction of the world

What if it is neither of the above? What if it is slowly transformative but only in select, specific tasks (e.g. drug discovery)? What if AI provides only a marginal improvement in the administrative efficiency of individuals? And what if this improvement in administrative efficiency distracts us from the hard work of making real reforms in the way we organize our businesses, including in healthcare?

Artificial intelligence Has Marginally Improved My Administrative Efficiency

AI has been only of marginal benefit to me. For example, I currently use AI only to produce templates for school and work excuses as well as to help write appeals when an insurance company denies coverage for a procedure. The time savings are small for my staff and myself.

I Can Imagine a Time When the Administrative Role for Artificial Intelligence Expands

I can imagine AI improving the administrative efficiency of the following:

• Scheduling patients
• Transcribing consultations and post-operative visit notes
• Scheduling business meetings
• Transcribing business meetings

Companies that produce AI products that automate the above need to navigate healthcare privacy laws to be adopted widely by physicians.

There Are Two Areas of Concern Over the Use of Artificial Intelligence

There are two areas of concern with the use of AI in the field of facial plastic surgery:

1. Future AI-powered programs that analyze the face and recommend surgical and non-surgical treatments. There are multiple reasons why AI is likely to be a poor judge of aesthetics, not the least of which is the bias of the information being fed into the AI models. Another reason AI is likely to be a poor judge of aesthetics is that each person has their own personal aesthetic and associated concerns beyond a “model” cosmetic patient. Also, it would be difficult to imagine a scenario in which an AI-powered program could reasonably understand the possibilities and limitations of any facial plastic surgery procedure on an individual’s face. As a result, such future programs run a real risk of establishing unreasonable expectations for patients and/or potentially pushing to towards a procedure for something that does not bother them. Furthermore, it would likely be an expensive piece of software and/or hardware for salespeople to foist onto providers.
2. One area where many people feel AI shows promise is as a background general assistant, completing tasks that require navigating multiple programs and websites (e.g. booking a vacation). One scenario in which AI would potentially be helpful for the administrative staff in an office is in managing health insurance billing and insurance claims denials. Unfortunately, healthcare privacy laws would seem likely to create too much friction to make this a practical reality for providers in the near term. In the medium-to-long term, AI may make a kludgy bureaucracy easier to navigate. However, this runs the risk of an administrative arms race where everything becomes increasingly complicated to manage on both sides of, for example, insurance billing. Instead, it would seem to make more sense to pursue reform of the systems themselves such that AI is not necessary.