Goalposts

Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?

2023 Decembermodeless

About whether LLMs can help with diagnosis when patient data is scattered across offices.

In the situation you describe humans fail constantly. My experience with the medical system has decidedly not been that magically competent back office people call every office you've ever visited to assemble your complete medical history from scraps and effectively organize it for the doctor. It's a constant game of telephone where you have to do most of the work yourself, calling around and giving instructions to receptionists to give to other people to get this stuff done. They can't even communicate reliably between the nurses and doctors in the same damn office to avoid asking the same questions multiple times every time you visit.

What you describe, if it worked reliably, would be an advance over current human-level average performance. And AI will absolutely be able to do it, too. Probably within ten years, though it will take longer to deploy after the capabilities are there.

An AI reliably collects a patient's records from separate offices and labs and organizes them for the doctor.

Has this happened?

Yes 46 (35%)Not sure 55 (42%)No 29 (22%)

Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.