The introduction of intelligent robots, expert systems and other forms of intelligent automatization in the current practice of medicine seems to be inevitable. It appears interesting to look back to the efforts that have been done, since the former steps, about three decades ago and consider the prospects in this field for both short and long term. Simultaneously it is interesting to reckon the new aspects which are raised with the evolution of these methodologies such as the responsibility of decisions taken by intelligent systems, the probable advantages, at the present stage, of the interactive systems and the risk of self-learning systems. Some efforts carried out in our department in this field are described.