What is the Buzz about Artificial Intelligence?
By Mark Land, M.S., RAC-US, AAHP President
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming of age in popular culture and business. Headlines trumpet the wonders and worries of the coming AI world. Certainly AI will relieve all of us of much drudgery in creating content and analysis. It may, however, refocus our attention on editing and verifying the content generated automatically. Artificial Intelligence is capable of analyzing and reporting on an amazing amount of information. Output can be presented in many formats, voices and tones, allowing for a variety of uses and presentations. To add to the variety, there are a large number of AI applications available for use — many with different focuses.
AI applications will respond to any question. Questions are known as prompts. Prompting becomes an art form. The scope and precision are critical to improving the clarity and accuracy of the output. Each iteration can be prompted again to improve the response. One may ask the prompt to include academic or regulatory citations. This is often a good practice to allow the prompter to double-check or learn more about the topic.
What are examples of how to use AI in everyday life or work? The application of AI in everyday life is limitless — everything from recipes for healthy meals to lectures on Russian literature. In your work life, use AI to analyze your email to expose the most important priorities for the given moment or day. Use AI to analyze and summarize reports prepared by your colleagues. Use AI applications to explore and gain a leg up in new areas of interest.
I have used AI applications to research the regulatory history of novel therapeutic categories and product categories. I found the responses to be directional. That means that responses provide a direction for additional research that otherwise might not have been obvious. In addition, AI does a reasonable job at summarizing hundreds if not thousands of pages of regulatory history information. This can save hours of time for the research that needs to be done by a human, making our own work more efficient and effective.
AI is not coming; it is here. Like all novel technologies, AI is a tool being ushered in with apprehension and admiration. Try it out and you will come to love it.