COVER STORY
s t s i mac areers?
s t c r e a p acy C s m h r a o P Pr of Help Or Hinder Ph ence
Will
tellig n I l a ici Artif
DoHyun Lee
dhleeaa@yonsei.ac.kr
O
ne of the most debatable scientific issues in the first half of 2016 was the Go match between AlphaGo from
Google DeepMind and Se Dol Lee, the Go world champion. Initially, people casted doubt on the machine’s
ability. However, despite the high expectation on Lee, AlphaGo, unexpectedly, won the game by 4-1; a
newly made robot has beaten the world champion. Not only did the result surprise the public, but it also was an indication of beginning of the artificial intelligence era.
Regarding artificial intelligence, pharmacists nowadays would question themselves, “Could my job be
replaced by artificial intelligence?” At first glance, this assumption may sound probable, however, upon careful examination of various studies and surveys, the complete replacement of robots seems unfeasible.
Along with technological advancement, Michael Osborne from Oxford University researched about “The Future
of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to automation”. Interestingly, out of 336 different occupations, the
ranking of the three different groups of pharmacists varied: ‘pharmacy and other dispensing assistant’ positioned
in 42nd, ‘pharmaceutical technician’ in 47th, while ‘pharmacist’ was in 352nd. These three groups differ in their professions: ‘pharmacy and other dispensing assistant’ and ‘pharmaceutical technician’ mainly fill in prescriptions,
while ‘pharmacists’ promote new drugs, or collaborate with other health and medical care providers. The study reveals that machines will soon take over the pharmacists’ repetitive work, such as prescribing and medication
counseling, reflecting that pharmaceutical careers will encounter a new aspect. Adding to that, the main task of
pharmacists should not be limited solely to prescribing. Considering these factors, then, what is the correlation between artificial intelligence and pharmacists? And to what extent will technology affect pharmacy prospects?
Retail Pharmacists Speaking of pharmacists, people generally think of retail pharmacists first in South Korea. Unfortunately, retail pharmacists are most susceptible to the appearance of technology since robots are gradually replacing their tasks. For instance, like Watson from IBM possesses patients’ information and medical records, compounding robots could connect all the information together and provide the most appropriate prescription based on the patients’ symptom just in a few nanoseconds. Such an
16
THE BLUE VANGUARD
artificial intelligence allows patients to receive drugs in a more accurate and rapid manner. In fact, compounding robots did not make any error during 350,000 medicines compounding in California, whereas pharmacists made a few. Since robots are more delicate and less time-consuming in counting, bottling, and labeling medications, replacement of artificial intelligence seems quite plausible.