Spotlight on ... AI Chat in Healthcare

You may have noticed stories in the news about AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools in the past few weeks. The main ones that are currently being talked about are ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) Bing AI and Google Bard, but there are many others. In the coming weeks, the library staff will keep a close eye on this emerging technology and what it will mean for you and its possible application in healthcare.
 
These AI Chat tools are computer programs that can hold conversations with people, kind of like an AI-powered chatbot you might encounter online. It uses a technique called "machine learning" to generate responses to text-based inputs, like questions or comments. Essentially, they have been trained on a huge dataset of language and can generate responses that sound like they could have been written by a human.
 
People can use these tools to ask questions or to have simulated conversations about various topics. Some people think they could be a useful tool for learning and searching for evidence, while others worry that it could replace human factors or contribute to AI generated content which could change the evidence landscape.  
 
It is early days for these tools and while they are interesting to play around with (to see what is possible) I would not recommend using them just yet to make evidence-based decisions.

Holly Cook (holly.cook3@nhs.net)