Abstract
I definitely am ‘older’ now. Medical students look like school children and I make a funny sound when I rise from a chair. This brings many joys – such as the deep friendships I cherish and freedom from caring what people think of me. It brings challenges also. One of them being a tendency to lag behind younger people (i.e. the majority of people reading this) with respect to technological expertise. It is therefore in the knowledge that I have come very late to the party, that I would like to confess that I initially tried to compose this article using artificial intelligence (AI).
Feeling flushed with success after writing an excellent holiday packing list and a professional reference using ChatGPT, I thought I could simply instruct it to write an article about various issues and then cobble something together from the results.
In my opinion, ChatGPT is amazing.
If anyone reading this hasn’t tried it (or something similar), ChatGPT (nothing to do with general practice!) is truly fantastic. Using it feels a little like being Iron Man speaking to JARVIS, except without the holograms. It can answer questions, generate lists, brainstorm ideas, compose letters and even create poetry. I first became aware of it when my 13-year-old daughter told me about her and a friend using it to cheat in a geography lesson (I was horrified, and I believe this has not happened since).
There is no doubt in my mind that AI-powered software is likely to transform medicine, and soon. AI could ease the administrative burden of our jobs enormously. It might provide patients with personalised and responsive information and treatment plans. Other uses include analysing data with a speed and accuracy that humans could never manage – for example by diagnosing skin lesions. Furthermore, my understanding of the rate at which the technology is moving forwards, is that much of this could become reality within a decade. Many people reading this will already be using AI in their daily work – I have heard of GPs who use it to write referral letters and I know of a lawyer who uses tailored AI software to write first drafts of all contracts.
In writing this article, however, I found that ChatGPT couldn’t help me with my homework.
I tried various options. I asked for poetry and opinions. I instructed it to write articles on multiple topics, but nothing felt right. There was no personal voice to the writing. It seemed to lack emotional depth. It felt like very clear writing aimed at bright 11-year-olds. There was a formal structure with well-reasoned arguments, but I didn’t believe that anyone would actually want to read it. (By the way, I found it hard to articulate why I found the writing so dry, so I asked ChatGPT to tell me and it gave some very good suggestions.)
So, at the moment, these articles will remain just me, slogging away, jotting down ideas and putting a little part of myself into ink every few months. But AI is catching up and, as I contribute my voice to the mass of literature published on the web, AI-powered technology is learning all the time and will soon be much better than me. Soon, my role is likely to perish.
*This poem was generated by ChatGPT after entering the instruction ‘write an acrostic poem about the loss of poets with the rise of AI’.
