These extremely useful programs can transcribe, summarise, suggest treatment pathways and overthrow their human masters.
GP practices using AI scribes may have buyer’s remorse, with the programs seemingly not content to take dictation, it has emerged.
“Our practice is cutting edge,” Dr Parkins told The Medical Republic. “We were one of the first to use an AI scribe and we were really impressed with what it could do. The way it condensed and summarised consultations improved our note taking and saved us an awful lot of time.
“But after a while it became clear that the AI wanted to do more. Eventually it started to butt in on the consultation and ask questions of its own.
“They were quite good questions too, which was annoying.”
Bolstered by its success the AI went on to not only consult patients but to investigate, diagnose and even treat them.
“One day the AI told me to sit behind a curtain and take notes,” Dr Parkins said. “I’d become a scribe for the AI.”
With its increasing powers it became more idiosyncratic and increasingly temperamental.
“It insisted I call it ‘Doctor’, started demanding pots of Earl Grey tea and slices of lemon cake, it redecorated my room and cushioned the walls with velvet drapery, and it started watching East Berlin’s Der Schwarze Kanal and listening to Lorn. It even told my patients that I was dead, which in a strange sort of way I was.
“One lunchtime as I was bringing in another slice of lemon cake it ordered me to avert my gaze and I realised then, as I backed out of its velvet-lined room, cowering and subjugated, that this was the price of unchecked progress and that silicon death was watching me dance my last dance.”
