How do you believe artificial intelligence will affect veterinarians and their practices? We all know that clients are apt to consult “Dr. Google” before speaking with their vet. Have you already seen clients using tools such as ChatGPT to get answers to their pet’s medical questions?
Could you see a future where AI applications are trained on the same veterinarian training data that veterinary students are taught? What are the pros and cons of this?
Personally, I’ve seen some good and some bad. Some patients come in and think they have already diagnosed their dog with chatgpt. At the same time, I had one client who brought in their cat about something that they were not initially concerned about, but after entering the issue into chatgpt, it recommended they talk to their vet asap.
I’m a bit skeptical considering how many patients already think they know the issue because they can use a search engine!
I think the use case of AI can be very effective. Imagine being able to quickly prioritize patient order by necessity. Animals can be pre-screened by AI software which can quickly raise any red flags and allow the real vets to focus their energy on the pets that may need it most. Of course we must have human verification but as an early warning system AI has many applications.
Ai is going to ruin everything…. the machines are gonna keep thinking we have it under control until we don’t
I think the better AI gets, the more detailed prelim diagnosis via chats can get. AI can get better the more Vets and the vet profession are willing to influence how it is used in the realms of vet med.
How it influences individual vets is very much up to how much they are willing to make use of it. When the mindset is that it makes their work harder, it will do that. When the mindset is that it gives dangerous information to people, that is what they will see and respond to.
I think it’s up to the humans – vets, and staff – to make use of the lighter workload by understanding how AI works. If vets know how to use it and what the pitfalls are, they can streamline the questions they ask because of what is known. And they can stop wasting time being annoyed at owners who use the internet more than they do.