Will Elon's Robots Replace Surgeons in 3 Years??
- Dr. Bow Tie
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Is #ElonMusk right? Will his #Optimus robots replace surgeons in 3 years? Will #GenAI take over medicine?
I remain skeptical, and not just because it’s Musk, but because that’s not where the change needs to happen.
Use AI (after minimizing its environmental impact) to effect systemic change and support patients better, and then I’ll be a believer. Until then, it’s just widening the gap created by social determinants of health.
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So Elon Musk went on the Moonshots podcast and said it’ll be three years before robots will replace and outnumber surgeons. Let’s start with what Elon gets right - there IS a shortage of doctors, and it does take a long time to learn to be a good doctor, AND knowledge is constantly evolving. And he’s also right that doctors do make mistakes.
Now let’s review why I’m not worried about the big claim. I’m not foolish enough to think that artificial intelligence is not going to be a huge factor in everything, including medicine, over the next decade. And yes, AI may start to take over some jobs.
I don’t think it will entirely erase doctors, and I don’t think it will be in three years, and I certainly don’t think it will be Elon Musk’s Tesla Optimus robots in 3 years.
One of the biggest myths of the 21st century is that Elon Musk is some kind of tech genius. He didn’t start any of the companies he’s famous for running, and still he’s had major successes in the past when he surrounded himself with smart folks, but in recent years it seems like everything he’s spearheaded has…not lived up to expectations. He took Twitter from the best collaborative social media platform, gave up a lot of its branding, and turned it into a alt-right incel cesspool. The cybertruck looks like garbage and it’s very funny to see owners try to make it seem like it’s anything more than a truck that looks dumb. He claimed he could make more efficient and lifesaving ventilators and other equipment during the peak of COVID and then we didn’t see him do anything, because I assume he couldn’t figure out how to profit from it. And the self-driving Teslas are not panning out nearly as well as he’d so confidently stated. So if Elon Musk is leading the Tesla Optimus robot project, I feel like my job is safe. Maybe he’ll prove me wrong.
In all seriousness, I know that AI is not going anywhere anytime soon. I honestly hate generative AI and the terrible environmental impact it has, and I don’t really respect anyone who calls themselves an “AI artist” by creating slop. But assistive AI that can reduce time on the computer and allow for more time with patients? If we can make that less impactful on the environment, and if we can protect privacy (which unfortunately is not a guarantee in 2026), it may be worth doing to enhance the doctor-patient relationship. It’s not perfect yet, and if you’ve been watching The Pitt you can see examples of that with Dr. Al-Hashimi introducing a gen-AI program, and rolling it out kind of poorly.
But the most important thing is, we don’t need AI to replace doctors, nor can it replace us, honestly - people vary too much in too subtle of ways and honestly most people will still prefer the human touch. There’s a study from two years ago where they looked at patients in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland; admittedly it was based on vignettes rather than real-world encounters, but they did prefer a human doctor over a chatbot doctor, with a human being assisted by AI coming in the middle. Maybe in reality that might be different, but I don’t think so.
That said, doctors do make mistakes and people have been wronged by the healthcare system, so the aim of AI development should be to allow doctors the time and energy to do better by patients. Elon is gonna bluster away from that because that won’t make him money, but to do better for actual people, I wouldn’t trust Elon anyway. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the last several years, it’s that the future needs to be people-centered.