Star Trek: Voyager's EMH points out why AI could never replace humans

Robert Picardo spent seven years playing a hologram on Star Trek: Voyager before returning to the second season of Star Trek: Prodigy in the same role. Over the course of seven seasons on Voyager, his character evolved into more of a human than a hologram, though he still had his limitations when it came to emotions.

So it's no surprise in an interview with Inverse that the subject of artificial intelligence came up. With some businesses choosing to utilize AI to replace humans, we're looking at the possibility of that coming into the medical field, perhaps even having AIs practicing as doctors. Recently, Picardo was interviewed by a Harvard doctor and researcher who was writing a book about AI in medicine. That doctor interviewed Picardo and wrote an entire chapter about the EMH, who he considered "the perfect doctor."

The doctor soon realized, though, that such a doctor would be improbably because of the doctor-patient relationship. Picardo points out that "The journey of the Doctor on Voyager is that the doctor-patient relationship evolved." As curmudgeonly as The Doctor was, he had to learn how to not only communicate with his patients, but to make them feel as though they mattered. AIs do not have the ability to bring that human aspect to any relationship.

While there is certainly a place in this world for artificial intelligence, without being able to express human emotions, to connect with people on their level, it would be difficult to see them replacing humans in careers that require that connection...like doctors. Picardo played a hologram trying to learn how to develop into more of a human, but, in the end, he could not be what his other crewmembers were. And he accepted his limitations, which is something all creators of AI must do as well.