Ghost in the Machine: Artificial Intelligence in Medical Education

Abstract

“I think, therefore I am” -Rene Descartes(1637)

I debated whether I should get ChatGPT or MetaAI (the two versions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) I am somewhat familiar with) to write an initial draft of this editorial. It seems simple enough: a few basic prompts and you get a nice, structured write up which although a little ‘bland’, can serve the purpose. After the initial work has been done by AI, one can always edit or modify to one’s liking. Ultimately, I decided to write it the old-fashioned way, by sitting at my computer and typing. My hesitation about using AI was also because of a recent discussion at a friend’s house. My friend, a science fiction writer and novelist of some renown, spoke vocally against the use of all AI and his arguments were two-fold: by using AI, we are, of course, doing huge corporations a favor by training their LLMs (large language models) for free. These are a certain type of artificial intelligence, specifically machine learning models trained on massive amounts of text data to understand, generate and manipulate human language. Every time you send a query to Chat GPT, Gemini, Llama or others, the model ‘learns’ more about the world of humans and can then build on it. My friend’s other objection though, was more concerning: if a machine is writing an essay or an article or even a book, where is my own unique ‘voice’? The answer, of course, is ‘nowhere’! And if I am not forced to reach deep into my brain and tap into my own creativity, will that not ultimately lead to the ‘dumbing down’ of the human brain. The machines get smarter while we go the other way? It is a scary thought.