Karin Verspoor
School of Computing Technologies, RMIT University
The year 2023 might be called “The Year of AI”, when it seemed that the whole world was turned on to the potential value of AI to transform everything from our ability to write sweet love poems to performing surgery. There was hype – about the magical capabilities and emergent behaviours of generative LLMs – and there was fear – about AI taking over our jobs or doing harm. There is of course some element of truth to both views. AI can do things that are challenging for humans, such as find complex patterns buried in large data sets, but it does so with blinders that narrow its view to that data, with limited context or nuance.
In health care settings, it is clear that there are tremendous opportunities for AI to drive more efficient and targeted care. However, it is equally clear that there are barriers to realisation of these opportunities, and risks associated with adoption of AI technologies. In this talk, I will introduce the core concepts of AI, provide examples of how AI is already being used in clinical settings, and explore both sides of this debate.