AI is not ‘a panacea’ to NHS crisis, says expert

Artificial intelligence (AI) is not a cure-all solution for public services, a machine learning expert has said.

During an in conversation at Holyrood Connect's Digital Health and Care Scotland conference with Holyrood's editor Mandy Rhodes, Sotirios Tsaftaris, chair of machine learning and computer vision at the University of Edinburgh has urged against buying into the hype surrounding AI.

He said: “It's not a panacea, but at the same time it's something that could offer some solutions as long as they're done properly, integrated well, ratified, certified, monitored and so on.”

He added: “We have to pick some things that may work and some things that don't and make the right decision.”

Tsaftaris who “fell in love” with computers because they gave him “power”, called for a more strategic deployment of the technology. “We need to understand what the right steps are and what are the right areas to put AI to the test. I'm not saying to deploy it but just test it,” he told the conference.

He also sounded a note of caution on having a single organisation or individual having control of critical infrastructure, such as tech magnate Elon Musk, who’s Starlink satellites are becoming a popular choice for connectivity north of the border.

More recently, Scottish trains became the first in the world to be linked to Musk’s satellites. The network service are now available on ScotRail’s class 158 trains on the Far North Line via Clarus Networks Group.

Tsaftaris asked: “Do you want to have our infrastructure dependent on - I'm not going to say the name… but do you want to? I think that's something that we want to take a step back, right?

He continued: “There's a very beautiful YouTube video where you open up the antenna, and you see what they build there. It's a marvel of engineering. And as an engineer myself, it is a marvel to see that happening and what they've done. But suddenly, you know, do we really want to rely all our infrastructure on this technology? I think that's something that we should take a step back.”