The first season of The Pitt had no clear villains. There were definitely a few more-than-ornery patients, and some of the doctors made questionable choices (looking at you, Langdon); however, HBO’s medical drama skated through Season 1 without pointing any fingers towards one particular source of evil.
Well, it looks like there’s one Big Bad on the rise in Season 2: please welcome to the stage, generative AI.
As introduced in the season’s first episode, newcomer Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) is a big AI advocate, and she’s spending a large part of her first day in the ER trying to convince everyone that AI is a good thing (yikes). At one point, Dr. Al even cajoles the younger doctors into watching her demo an AI-driven app to help take speech-to-text notes during a patient consultation. “Studies show that you can spend 80 percent less time charting,” Dr. Al says smugly after showing off her cool new toy. She is met with both awe and eye rolls from her audience.
Although she’s most likely right, Dr. Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell) points out that the app heard the patient’s medication wrong. “It says here she takes Risperdal, an antipsychotic: she takes Restoril when needed for sleep,” he tells her, to which Dr. Al responds with an answer that faintly rings of embarrassed tech bro. “Generative AI is 98 percent accurate at present,” she retorts.
Dr. Al’s AI leanings tend to put her at odds with Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle), who brings up “gut feeling” a lot in this episode as a way for doctors to figure out what’s wrong with their patients. Now, I wouldn’t want my physician treating me based on a hunch, but I think Dr. Robby’s “gut” is something all doctors gain after years of experience making quick decisions for their patients. Why place something as invasive as a catheter in a baby when a cotton swab trick will do? Or, why give a patient two types of medicine when one will suffice? Dr. Al and Dr. Robby once again get into several bickering matches in this episode. While I know they’re trying to drive the whole point about “AI versus humans,” their squabbling is getting old really fast.
Things move at a slower-than-usual pace in this episode of The Pitt. The mysterious case of the missing baby has yet to be solved. Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball) remains exiled to triage. Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones) is still dealing with her nine-year-old patient, but it’s starting to look like she’s suffering from more than a chin laceration.
However, this episode has ramped up on the gore, something which I know some fans (me) were thankful for. Dr. Mel King (Taylor Dearden) sticks four fingers into a man’s exposed humeral head (or his upper arm bone) and pops it back into his skin. Dr. Samira Mohan (Supriya Ganesh) cracks open a patient’s cast, only to reveal a swarm of maggots munching on his arm’s flesh. And we see Santos and King squeeze way too much blood out of a man’s eight-hour erection.
But none of these storylines is as… well, as annoying as Dr. Al’s love of AI. Perhaps I’m being too hard on the poor doctor just for being excited about an app, or perhaps the whole “AI is cool and ready to take over the world” spiel is hitting a little too close to home (I am, after all, a writer who may one day lose her job to a bot), but the AI plot just feels superfluous when compared to the other stories floating around in the Pitt. Langdon’s trying to recover from his opioid addiction! Mel’s going through a malpractice lawsuit! There is a missing baby! There are myriad problems and character arcs to focus on, and I, for one, would like not to think about AI while trying to enjoy my favorite medical drama.
