The machine will see you now

I’ve had my first close encounter with AI.  I assume it’s my first.  An unexpected email in my inbox invited me to complete a questionnaire about neck pain.  

I’d talked to my GP recently about aches and pains in my neck and he mentioned referring me to a physiotherapist.  So I was expecting to hear something about it.  But from a human being - not a machine.

My first instinct was to bin it, but curiosity got the better of me and I carefully checked the domain name of the sender. Not anything I recognised.  An Internet search eventually showed that it was - for want of a better word - an online triage system used by the NHS, amongst others, for diagnosing muscular-skeletal problems.

The questionnaire took about 15’ to complete.  As well as ticking boxes and writing comments, it also required me to watch video sequences of a human being - or what I assumed to be a human being (a hunky male with more muscles than a decent fish counter) - waving his arms and twisting his neck - and then asking me to try and replicate those movements myself.  And assign a level of difficulty for each movement.

By the time I had finished I’d gone from sceptical to moderately impressed.  Not the same as face to face, but surprisingly comprehensive in the analysis.

The machine promised to get back to me within 5 days with details of an appointment with a human being.  We’ll see.