It is not often that a technology disrupts entire professions in one year or, on the contrary, shows its potential for years to come. 2023 was the year when many people began to realize the power of artificial intelligence (AI).
In this article you can read about the experiences and expectations of three people who have been very interested in AI in their own way this year: a Dutch teacher, a photographer and a medical researcher.
“Students are learning less instead of learning more”
Dutch teacher Bregje Cobussen’s first contact with ChatGPT during class was when a 4th grader had to write and present an original introduction to a speech. “And he started speaking in a language I’d never heard come out of his mouth before. I asked: What does this word mean? His eloquent answer: I don’t know.
ChatGPT is now widely used by its students. Although Bregje Cobussen does not always understand this, most of the time she clearly notices the difference with a text she wrote herself. “ChatGPT often produces text that is written at a level that students cannot handle.”
He sees this leading to laziness in the classroom. “Then when they need to complete ungraded assignments over which they have little control, they quickly go through ChatGPT. “The only thing I can do to keep my eyes open is to walk around and see what they’re seeing on their screens.” But when I stand in the back left, I can’t see what’s happening in the front right.
As a teacher, she changes the curriculum slightly throughout the year. “But of course we didn’t take into account something like artificial intelligence.” Moreover, the evaluation has already been determined. “So I think next year is really going to be about us being there and how we can use that to our advantage.”
Cobussen says it’s about finding the balance between advantages and disadvantages. “So far this has given us a lot of extra work, while students are still learning less rather than more.”
“You no longer need to go to Antarctica for shooting”
For a Dutch teacher the focus is on the text, for Brenda de Vries it is on the image. According to them, it’s not ChatGPT that’s shaking things up, it’s the Midjourney image generator. “For me it was like going back into the darkroom. You then place a gradually increasing image on the chemistry. With Midjourney, you get four gradually increasing images.”
De Vries only came into contact with AI-generated images in March, but it has already fundamentally changed his work. He is mainly active in the advertising world. “You no longer need to go to Antarctica to shoot there.” Generative AI essentially enables advanced cut-and-paste work that looks increasingly realistic.
He emphasizes that this is very different from journalism or documentary work, where originality is important. Because he says that many things have changed in advertising photography and originality is not that important anymore.
In less than a year he saw the created image become increasingly realistic. “There’s now a way to give people very realistic eyebrows, create very realistic lighting, or give their skin a realistic texture.”
“Artificial intelligence can halve the workload in healthcare”
As a medical researcher at Radboudumc in Nijmegen, Colin Jacobs works primarily with predictive artificial intelligence. In other words: a system that predicts something.
“I look at abnormalities in the lungs and try to estimate the likelihood that what we’re seeing is actually lung cancer or, for example, a scar or something else.” And artificial intelligence can help with this.
Jacobs also thinks the technology behind tools like ChatGPT also plays a role. “This allows radiological reports to be understood and summarized. And we can use this to further improve our systems.”
He now works in the radiology department, where artificial intelligence is used to analyze chest images. “You can think of this as the second reader next to the radiologist.” And that seems to have worked. “There are several studies showing that performance is comparable to that of a radiologist.”
Jacobs points to a large study in Sweden in which one in two radiologists was replaced by artificial intelligence. “This study showed that cancer detection was just as good and the workload was reduced by almost half.” This is his biggest hope for the future: that AI will reduce costs and reduce workload in healthcare.
Source: NOS
Jason Jack is an experienced technology journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in computer science and engineering, he has a deep understanding of the latest technology trends and developments. He writes about a wide range of technology topics, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, software development, and cybersecurity.
