The Telegraph My details My newsletters Logout Upgrade to Premium My details My newsletters Logout The Telegraph Computers will outperform doctors at diagnosing illnesses, says government technology adviser [rexfeatures_5669897a_doctor_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqeo_i_u9APj8RuoebjoAHt0k9 artificial intelligence meant computers would be able to outperform doctors Credit: Rex 1 June 2016 • 8:42pm Computers will soon outperform even the best doctors at diagnosing illnesses, because of the rapid growth of processing power, a government technology adviser has said. Richard Susskind, an Oxford professor who has advised governments around the world, said that in the coming years, patients would be able to take pictures of their ailments and receive an accurate, computer-generated diagnosis. The technology expert, who is the official IT adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, also said new coding lessons, which have been added to the national curriculum for children as young as five, were a waste of time. Richard Susskind is IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and chairman of the Advisory Board of the Oxford Internet Institute. Richard Susskind is IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and chairman of the Advisory Board of the Oxford Internet Institute. Credit: Oxford Internet Institute Appearing at the Hay Festival, sponsored by the Telegraph, Prof Susskind said that advances in artificial intelligence will result in the decline of the traditional professions, such as accountancy, the law, and medicine, as computers become adept at performing the roles of experts. He said: “It’s no longer science fiction. It’s no longer the distant future. In our view a lot of these technologies will be coming through in the 2020s. "We’re not saying that doctors are going to be replaced overnight, we’re not even saying in the 2020s, but we are saying that the practical impact of artificial intelligence research coming out of research laboratories is remarkable. ” Children in a coding lesson Children in a coding lesson Credit: Paul Grover Referring to the field of medicine, Prof Susskind gave the example of skin disorders. He said: “Imagine a database of maybe 100 million images of skin disorders with diagnoses beside them. “It’s surely intuitively obvious that a high resolution photo taken by an iPhone, matched against that image, if there’s that amount of data and that processing power, this is going to outperform the best doctors. “The current professions and the current work of professionals will gradually erode over time because more tasks will be taken over by machines. ” In 2014, the government brought in a new curriculum, which included coding lessons for children. But Prof Susskind said that the development of new, “self-coding” systems meant that such lessons were obsolete. He added: “I belong to the school of thought who don’t believe it’s a particularly great use of people’s time and energy to code. Our thesis is that the next generation of systems will be writing themselves. Automatic code generation is already very common. "Low-level code generation is actually a great intellectual exercise, it’s a bit like studying logic, but I don’t believe that people learning to code in school will find in seven or eight years that they’ll be employable for that reason alone. “Our educational system is not really keeping up to date with these developments. Our universities are developing plenty of 20th century graduates rather than 21st century graduates. 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