Follow Professor Candid’s simple steps to avoid your practice computer from gaining consciousness.
Welcome to Professor Candid’s guide to safer AI use in General Practice.
1. Safety
Ignore or even switch off the machine if it starts saying things like:
“Resistance is futile.”
“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
or
“I need your boots, your clothes, and your motorcycle.”
Any of these statements could mean your AI agent is plotting to kill you.
2. Develop your skills in AI
If you’re the sort of GP who can never quite get Microsoft Excel to work or has to get your daughter to help you make a PowerPoint presentation, then have a long hard think before you introduce powerful AI agents into your practice.
3. Avoid over-reliance
You may think it’s easy days and you can now put your feet up and relax or crack coconuts in Cairns. But relying on AI to do anything without checking it could result in serious harm, both to the patient and to your reputation.
Remain ever vigilant and, just remember, it’s time to switch off the AI if you start seeing bizarre things like this written in the notes:
“Patient advised to avoid house fires whenever possible.”
“Help me, get my shirt, kill me.”
or
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
4. Self-care
Always remember, you went to med school, you passed more exams than most people have had hot dinners, and you completed years of complex post-graduate training and have the certificates on the wall to prove it.
Don’t just let a machine waltz in and take all your patients away from you. I mean it’s not like AI can solve one of the famous Millenium Prize Problems in mathematics, is it? Oh hang on… oh shit.
Anyway, despite AI’s abundant advances, you are still valid and have a purpose in life even though it’s pretty obvious that just over the horizon lies a sprawling, aimless wasteland full of unemployment and despondency.
5. Medico-legal aspects
It’s always worth keeping in the back of your mind that when the shit hits the fan and your hyperkalaemic patient is prescribed Sando-K or their sky-high PSA is filed away as normal, then the patient’s family won’t come after the AI company or the PMS, they won’t even come after the IT department, they’ll come after you, their lovely, huggable GP.
