I Suspect We Are Only At The Beginning Of The Changes That Are Coming With AI.

This appeared last week:

New AI tools can record your medical appointment or draft a message from your doctor

By CARLA K. JOHNSON

Updated 1:43 AM GMT+11, March 14, 2024

Don’t be surprised if your doctors start writing you overly friendly messages. They could be getting some help from artificial intelligence.

New AI tools are helping doctors communicate with their patients, some by answering messages and others by taking notes during exams. It’s been 15 months since OpenAI released ChatGPT. Already thousands of doctors are using similar products based on large language models. One company says its tool works in 14 languages.

AI saves doctors time and prevents burnout, enthusiasts say. It also shakes up the doctor-patient relationship, raising questions of trust, transparency, privacy and the future of human connection.

A look at how new AI tools affect patients:

IS MY DOCTOR USING AI?

In recent years, medical devices with machine learning have been doing things like reading mammograms, diagnosing eye disease and detecting heart problems. What’s new is generative AI’s ability to respond to complex instructions by predicting language.

Your next check-up could be recorded by an AI-powered smartphone app that listens, documents and instantly organizes everything into a note you can read later. The tool also can mean more money for the doctor’s employer because it won’t forget details that legitimately could be billed to insurance.

Your doctor should ask for your consent before using the tool. You might also see some new wording in the forms you sign at the doctor’s office.

Other AI tools could be helping your doctor draft a message, but you might never know it.

“Your physician might tell you that they’re using it, or they might not tell you,” said Cait DesRoches, director of OpenNotes, a Boston-based group working for transparent communication between doctors and patients. Some health systems encourage disclosure, and some don’t.

Doctors or nurses must approve the AI-generated messages before sending them. In one Colorado health system, such messages contain a sentence disclosing they were automatically generated. But doctors can delete that line.

“It sounded exactly like him. It was remarkable,” said patient Tom Detner, 70, of Denver, who recently received an AI-generated message that began: “Hello, Tom, I’m glad to hear that your neck pain is improving. It’s important to listen to your body.” The message ended with “Take care” and a disclosure that it had been automatically generated and edited by his doctor.

Detner said he was glad for the transparency. “Full disclosure is very important,” he said.

WILL AI MAKE MISTAKES?

Large language models can misinterpret input or even fabricate inaccurate responses, an effect called hallucination. The new tools have internal guardrails to try to prevent inaccuracies from reaching patients — or landing in electronic health records.

“You don’t want those fake things entering the clinical notes,” said Dr. Alistair Erskine, who leads digital innovations for Georgia-based Emory Healthcare, where hundreds of doctors are using a product from Abridge to document patient visits.

The tool runs the doctor-patient conversation across several large language models and eliminates weird ideas, Erskine said. “It’s a way of engineering out hallucinations.”

Ultimately, “the doctor is the most important guardrail,” said Abridge CEO Dr. Shiv Rao. As doctors review AI-generated notes, they can click on any word and listen to the specific segment of the patient’s visit to check accuracy.

In Buffalo, New York, a different AI tool misheard Dr. Lauren Bruckner when she told a teenage cancer patient it was a good thing she didn’t have an allergy to sulfa drugs. The AI-generated note said, “Allergies: Sulfa.”

The tool “totally misunderstood the conversation,” said Bruckner, chief medical information officer at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. “That doesn’t happen often, but clearly that’s a problem.”

WHAT ABOUT THE HUMAN TOUCH?

AI tools can be prompted to be friendly, empathetic and informative.

But they can get carried away. In Colorado, a patient with a runny nose was alarmed to learn from an AI-generated message that the problem could be a brain fluid leak. (It wasn’t.) A nurse hadn’t proofread carefully and mistakenly sent the message.

“At times, it’s an astounding help and at times it’s of no help at all,” said Dr. C.T. Lin, who leads technology innovations at Colorado-based UC Health, where about 250 doctors and staff use a Microsoft AI tool to write the first draft of messages to patients. The messages are delivered through Epic’s patient portal.

The tool had to be taught about a new RSV vaccine because it was drafting messages saying there was no such thing. But with routine advice — like rest, ice, compression and elevation for an ankle sprain — “it’s beautiful for that,” Linn said.

Also on the plus side, doctors using AI are no longer tied to their computers during medical appointments. They can make eye contact with their patients because the AI tool records the exam.

The tool needs audible words, so doctors are learning to explain things aloud, said Dr. Robert Bart, chief medical information officer at Pittsburgh-based UPMC. A doctor might say: “I am currently examining the right elbow. It is quite swollen. It feels like there’s fluid in the right elbow.”

Talking through the exam for the benefit of the AI tool can also help patients understand what’s going on, Bart said. “I’ve been in an examination where you hear the hemming and hawing while the physician is doing it. And I’m always wondering, ‘Well, what does that mean?’”

WHAT ABOUT PRIVACY?

U.S. law requires health care systems to get assurances from business associates that they will safeguard protected health information, and the companies could face investigation and fines from the Department of Health and Human Services if they mess up.

Doctors interviewed for this article said they feel confident in the data security of the new products and that the information will not be sold.

More here:

https://apnews.com/article/chatgpt-ai-health-doctors-microsoft-f63d7fcc4b361cf8073406bf231e2b92

All I can say is don’t say you have not been warned!

David.

I Find This A Rather Compelling Case For Not Being A TikTok User And Encouraging Others To Be The Same!

This appeared a few days ago:

TikTok made me write this – and it’s time for it to go

Tiktok’s influence on young Australians goes beyond free speech and into sinister realms of undue influence.

The Parrhesian Columnist

Mar 15, 2024 – 11.56am

This week the US House of Representatives voted in favour of a bill banning TikTok in the US unless Chinese parent company ByteDance divests the app.

India banned TikTok in 2020. TikTok is also inaccessible in China, along with Facebook, Instagram and Google.

It’s time for Australia to join the bans, too. Every month, there are 8.5 million Australians active on TikTok, who spend an average 58 minutes per day on the platform, which is higher than for any other country.

This skews towards young people who use it as a source of entertainment, news, advice, and commercial recommendations. It is designed to be addictive, with algorithms that feed people more and more of what they crave.

#TikTokMadeMeBuyIt is a trend where young people justify purchases – from the latest haircare products to trips to Bali – based on the influence of TikTok.

The app’s powerful algorithm identifies the most compelling and sensational content, and surfaces it with a frequency and reach that make its recommendations very hard to resist. TikTok says four in 10 users buy a product after seeing it on TikTok, boasting that “investment can be instant with 41 per cent of users immediately purchasing a product after discovering it on TikTok. 

Skews viewers to a Communist Party agenda

“The user shopping experience doesn’t stop at purchase with 79 per cent of users creating videos ... This triggers more users to shop with 92 per cent saying they take action after watching a TikTok video.”

Those numbers are staggering if you compare them with any other form of promotional content whose response, recall, let alone action rates are much lower and 2 per cent to 5 per cent would be considered outperformance.

More than a third, or 34 per cent, of Gen Z also say they get their news from TikTok (it’s unclear if the other 66 per cent get it elsewhere or just do not care to read news at all).

With this level of pervasiveness and persuasiveness, are we doing enough to understand the real influence this platform and its algorithms have on young Australians?

Anthony Goldbloom is an Australian data scientist living in Silicon Valley who founded Kaggle and sold it to Google, and who formerly represented Australia in sailing and worked for the Reserve Bank of Australia.

TikTok is not available in China

He has written an analysis of TikTok’s algorithms that proves the app does not reflect prevailing attitudes of its users but skews viewership to suit what he argues is a Communist Party agenda.

The analysis shows that content consistent with Chinese geopolitical goals, for example #StandWithKashmir, which could undermine stability in India, is amplified relative to other platforms, while content unfriendly to the Chinese agenda, for example #FreeTibet, #FreeUighurs and #FreeHongKong, is disproportionately suppressed.

Another example is that despite an evenly split opinion on the Israel-Hamas war in the US, #FreePalestine content outweighs Israel-supportive content by 80 to 1.

Goldbloom has also exposed how many posts and comments are generated by bots that originate in other countries, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which begs the question whether our children are being unknowingly influenced by an imported worldview or hidden agenda.

It is telling that the TikTok we see in the West is not available in China itself, so one could argue the Chinese are serving Western kids addictive, digital heroin they wouldn’t serve up to their own children.

In the US, with the experience of Russian Facebook influence in a prior election, and an impending one, this topic is the subject of urgent debate.

In Australia, are we just too happy that our kids are safe in their rooms spending hours scrolling what, we believe, are harmless dance videos to pay attention to the real data and demand action?

Even if you set aside the arguments about China dictating content about how our young people engage and what they buy as mere conspiracy theories, it is still problematic that silent bot armies with unknown foreign agendas produce content that normalises ideas in ways that go far beyond free speech.

This is moving into undue influence. And how much concentration of power should one platform have when it commandeers so much time and has demonstrated much higher levels of addictiveness and persuasion than other forms of media and influence that have preceded it?

According to the eSafety Commission, a high proportion of young people in Australia have encountered inappropriate or hateful content online, 57 per cent have seen real disturbing violence, and 33 per cent have seen images or videos promoting terrorism.

There are big questions to be considered. How does a country protect its sovereignty when it comes to values, ideals and culture? And what about safeguarding our children?

We have strict regulations about how sensitive topics, such as violence and death, are depicted and referenced in traditional media, and codes of conduct governing news reporting accuracy and truth in advertising, but none of those seem to apply to the 8 million hours a day Australians are on TikTok.

The fine lines between truth and propaganda, influence and credibility, reality and deep-fakes blur more each day. And the algorithms determining what to serve up are opaque, designed for addiction, and controlled by a non-Australian organisation, possibly influenced by foreign entities who aren’t even willing to consume that content themselves. That doesn’t sound like a recipe that bodes well for Australia’s future.

Are we in the Orwellian fog of 1984 where we are so mollified by the screens that entertain us and tell us how wonderful life is with just one more product and one more like-minded opinion, that we are happy to ignore a future reality where the opinions that form the basis of our social fabric, and the values and ideals of future generations may look very different from what we anticipate?

Or like Winston’s act of rebellion in the book, must we be compelled to say “DOWN WITH TIKTOK”?

Australia cannot ignore the data that has emerged, especially when we spend more time on the platform per person than any other country.

We may not have an immediate election to protect, but we do have our children and our future to consider, and for them TikTok may be a ticking time bomb.

So tick-tock, tick-tock, it’s time for real debate on calling time on TikTok.

The full article is here:

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/tiktok-made-me-write-this-and-it-s-time-for-it-to-go-20240312-p5fbnv

All this makes me feel we would all be better off without this particular app in our lives, but then I would say that given my dislike of the present array of social media which all seem way too exploitative for my liking. The days of simplicity have really passed with the current generation of social media all working hard to exploit us all. As has often been said if the product is free it is you who are the price being paid!

David.

It Seems This Has Become A Complex Public Health Emergency Under Our Very Noses.

This appeared last week and frankly reveals a public health disaster…. 

The vape ban has utterly failed. What now?

Vaping rates have exploded, organised crime controls the trade, and Australia stands on the brink of a public health disaster. Is it time we followed New Zealand’s lead?

By Natasha Robinson

March 15, 2024

Australia stands on the brink of a public health disaster. The failure to regulate vaping in the past three to four years has created an illicit disposable vapes market that is rampant and looks to be impossible to stamp out. Vaping rates have exploded despite disposable vapes being made illegal. Organised crime controls the trade, lured by massive profits.

The federal government has embarked on a mammoth effort to kill the illegal trade and slash vaping rates via the toughest policies in the world that ban the importation, sale and personal use of nicotine vapes unless they are obtained by prescription – something no other country has attempted.

If the prescription model fails, as it has so far, such a policy comes close to amounting to prohibition. Prohibition has never worked at any point in history for any other illicit substance.

“This is a public health menace, particularly impacting younger Australians,” federal Health Minister Mark Butler said when he announced the tough vaping policies that formed part of a renewed attack on tobacco smoking in Australia, casting the tobacco industry as the driver of an insidious vaping threat to teenagers. “It is a deliberate strategy, I think, of Big Tobacco to create a new generation of nicotine addicts, and we simply can’t stand by and let that happen. It’s hooking our kids to nicotine and providing a gateway to cigarette smoking for them.”

There’s little doubt that vaping is harmful. How harmful the practice is, is contested. The long-term effects will be seen only in decades to come. The Cancer Council of NSW lists an alarming suite of health impacts, including lung inflammation and scarring caused by chemical inhalation, cell death and DNA damage. It points to the toxic chemicals contained in vapes, including chlorine, formaldehyde, the bug spray benzene, mercury, arsenic and acrolein, a substance found in weed killer.Vapes are technically illegal in Australia - but the colourful devices are still more present than ever.

These are the substances highly likely to be found in the illegal disposable vapes that have flooded the Australian market and account for at least 90 per cent of the e-cigarettes most of the nation’s 1.7 million vapers are smoking. People have no way of knowing whether these harmful products are in the vape they’re smoking because unlike New Zealand, Britain, Canada and many other countries, we do not have a highly regulated market that aims to deliver some measure of quality control.

The public health sector has lined up almost universally behind Butler’s quest to stamp out vaping. While the National Health Service in Britain distributes posters telling the public that e-cigarettes are “95 per cent less harmful to your health than normal cigarettes” and promotes a vaping-to-quit smoking policy, and the foremost institute, Public Health England, states expert reviews have found “there is no evidence so far that e-cigarettes are acting as a route into smoking for children or nonsmokers”, Australian public health leaders remain sceptical.

‘Shop owners are being stood over by gangsters telling them to sell these products or we’ll firebomb your shop.’

Public Health Association of Australia chief executive Terry Slevin says the possibility that the harms from vaping that emerge in coming decades could be as significant as those of smoking cannot be dismissed. “That’s entirely within the realms of possibility,” Slevin says. “I can’t tell you that with certainty, but anybody who dismisses that possibility is doing so naively.”

A war over statistics is playing out over the impact of rising vaping rates on smoking reduction and the true position on the connection between vaping uptake and transition to tobacco smoking. Butler cites research that indicates vapers are three times more likely to transition to tobacco smoking.

Yet the recent publication of the National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2022-23 – the most comprehensive Australian source of information on smoking and vaping, among other substances – showed a 25 per cent decline in daily smoking in the past four years, a drop four times faster than the historic average. Adult daily smoking rates now sit at 8.9 per cent, down from about 20 per cent about 20 years ago, and the rate is 0.9 per cent among 14 to 17-year-olds, down from 1.9 per cent in 2019.

At the same time, vaping rates tripled across the population. One in five people aged 14 and older in Australia reported having used e-cigarettes at least once in their lifetime. That figure was 49 per cent among 18 to 24-year-olds and 28 per cent in 14 to 17-year-olds. But only 3.5 per cent of those youth reported vaping daily. Proponents of vaping as an alternative to tobacco smoking point to the inverse relationship between declining smoking rates and rising vape use as probably causative.

“There are now more young adults using vapes almost entirely illegally than smoking cigarettes. And from a public health point of view, that’s a big win,” says University of Melbourne tobacco control researcher Ron Borland, a previous Cancer Council Nigel Gray Distinguished Fellow in Cancer Prevention. “Now, some people claim that just because they’re going in opposite directions, it’s not necessarily causation. And that’s absolutely true. But there’s lots of other evidence that it’s likely to be causative. The fact that the big wins in smoking reduction have been gained by people having to behave illegally is somewhat ironic.”

While other countries have moved to regulate the vaping industry via networks of specialised vape retailers and imposing standards on products those outlets are able to sell, Australia four years ago made the importation of nicotine vapes and liquid nicotine illegal, and legislated a medical model in which nicotine vapes only could be prescribed by a doctor and supplied at a pharmacy. The subsequent uptake of prescription vapes was low, with GPs shunning the program, and an illicit trade flourished as organised crime stepped in to supply consumer demand.

The profits on offer are enormous. Most of the disposable vapes in Australia – many of which deliver a high concentration of nicotine – come out of Shenzhen in China, and are sold to wholesale suppliers here for about $5 or $6 a device. Retailers pay the wholesalers about $20 a vape and sell them to consumers for about $38.

“This is now a vast, vast network,” says Louis Upton, sales director at Sydney vape manufacturer Oceania Liquid Labs, one of a dwindling network of nicotine-free vape suppliers that set up in Australia about a decade ago expecting nicotine-containing e-cigarettes to eventually become a regulated industry. Upton’s laboratory operates to high standards and produces products with ingredient labels. The legitimate vape industry in Australia is being squeezed into non-existence by the black market.

“The volume of illegal vapes coming into this country is a tsunami,” Upton says. “This can’t be stopped by the government saying they are banned because they’ve always been banned. These organised crime groups are not going to stop. Shop owners are being stood over by gangsters telling them to sell these products or we’ll firebomb your shop. That’s how lucrative it is. It is terrifying. And that’s happening every day in Australia.”

The Australian Border Force has told the government frankly that it cannot stem the tide of illegal vapes at the border. The prospect of policing vape sales at every convenience store in the country appears a herculean task beyond the capacity of health authorities and not a job that state police forces have the resources to incorporate into their purview.

The Australian National Advisory Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs told the government before the vape ban legislation that a policy of prohibition would make the problem only worse. Its members were scathing that the Therapeutic Goods Administration appeared unwilling to consider harm or demand reduction strategies, and raised concerns that young people would end up being criminalised.

Butler has stated that is unequivocally not the aim, yet a few weeks ago a 13-year-old boy in the NSW country town of Deniliquin who was vaping in a supermarket on a shopping trip with his mum was approached by police and violently tackled to the ground when he refused to hand over his vape.

Nicole Lee from the National Drug Research Institute is a member of the advisory council. She predicts the prohibitionist stance taken by Butler – who nominated vape control as his hoped legacy as a health minister – will fail.

“In general, with any drugs or essentially banned substances, the more restrictive you are with access, the more likely people will go to the black market, and the less control you have over anything,” Lee says. “We’re the only country in the entire world that is going in this direction. In terms of regulation, the problem we’re going to encounter with the prescription route is that GPs are already overstretched. And people don’t want to have to pay $100 to go to their GP to get a prescription for vapes.

“So what they do is just go around that system and go to the black market. I think in terms of the black market, the whole horse has already just kind of bolted. If you take illicit drugs, for instance, we spend an enormous amount of policing and customs time and effort and money to try to stamp out that market. And it’s made absolutely no difference whatsoever.

“When we take a law enforcement approach rather than instituting a public health response, there’s a high risk that the response will be disproportionate to the harms that the drug causes.

“Meanwhile, we see that black markets thrive and serious crimes are committed. And once we’ve got a black market thriving, kids have much better access. So if we’re trying to restrict access to children, then regulation for adults is the way to do that.”

Deakin University senior lecturer in criminology James Martin agrees. “Supply-side restrictions in any illicit market are difficult to pull off, and nearly impossible to pull off when they’re already established and when they exist in the context of strong demand,” he says.

“Drug trafficking syndicates see these policies as a business opportunity. And frankly, the stiffer the penalties, as long as the demand and the supply is there, the more profitable business opportunity is.

“And when you have a situation where you can go into any corner store or supermarket and purchase cigarettes but you need a prescription to purchase vapes that are a less harmful alternative, that seems to defy logic.”

Australia’s close neighbour New Zealand has taken a diametrically opposite approach. The New Zealand government began to heavily regulate the vaping industry in 2020. A legal industry was required to comply with a notified products register and a Vaping Regulatory Authority was established and tasked with approving specialised vape retailers, which must be bricks-and-mortar stores that could not be located within 300m of a school. A regime of compliance was instituted.

In the past four years New Zealand has recorded a 40 per cent decline in smoking rates. Its smoking rate is now just under 7 per cent. Smoking rates in Maori women have dropped from 40 per cent four years ago to 18 per cent. Australian Indigenous smoking rates have fallen substantially in recent years but still sit at a devastating 37 per cent and much higher in remote areas.

“We’ve got quite an interesting natural experiment going on between Australia and New Zealand, whereby our laws on cigarettes and tobacco are pretty much identical, but the only real difference is that New Zealand’s had a legal, permissive approach to vaping,” says longtime tobacco control campaigner Ben Youdan, director of the New Zealand independent campaign organisation Action for Smokefree 2025, which aims to eliminate the death and harm caused by tobacco.

Youdan recently visited Australia and briefed parliamentarians on New Zealand’s approach and outcomes. “Vaping has been unbelievably disruptive to smoking rates in countries which have had permissive approaches, in the UK and New Zealand, even in the US. And actually, weirdly, it appears to be the case even in Australia through the illicit market as well. That’s an awful lot of people who are not going to die as a result of smoking.

“Putting vapes in a situation where they’re through prescription, where there’s prohibition, doesn’t make any sense when smoking is overwhelmingly in the lower socio-economic populations, marginalised populations, Indigenous populations, populations who don’t have fair access to health systems, populations who face multiple systemic barriers in accessing GPs and healthcare. And those are the folks who just are not going to be able to get their hands on vapes to help them stop smoking.

More here:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/australias-vape-ban-has-utterly-failed-what-now/news-story/d4eedd2321c647a841d4e5e46c628077

Ms Robinson has outlined a real ripper of a dilemma here!

One really is left wondering what next for this mess. We have a legal and very harmful product (cigarettes) and an illegal but much safer alternative that it might be a very bad idea to promote – for its long term harm.

Frankly this is a really crazy mess now – we have a legal very harmful product and an illegal but much less harmful one that can replace it. It is hard to think just what move the Government can make to sort out the mess and eventually reach the desired state: i.e. minimal to no use of nicotine products – which, given how addictive they are, has to be very unlikely!

What would you do in this situation as Health Minister? I am rather short of realistic suggestions!  I am also pretty worried about the organised crime links - not good!

David.

AusHealthIT Poll Number 738 – Results – 17 March, 2024.

Here are the results of the recent poll.

Is The Proportion Of The Overall Number Of GP Consults Presently Being Undertaken Via Telehealth About Right?

Yes                                                                             9 (27%)

No – Too Many                                                         2 (6%)

No – To Few                                                            18 (55%)

I Have No Idea                                                          4 (12%)

Total No. Of Votes: 33

People seem to think we are not using telehealth enough I would say!

Any insights on the poll are welcome, as a comment, as usual!

A good number of votes. But also a very clear outcome! 

4 of 33 who answered the poll admitted to not being sure about the answer to the question!

Again, many, many thanks to all those who voted! 

David.

This Seems Like A Real “Boots-and All” Trial Of Microsoft Copilot.

I noticed this a few days ago:

06 Mar 2024 10:16 am AEDT

APS Tests Generative AI for Government Use Safety

DTA

Canberra, Australia - Over 50 Australian Public Service (APS) agencies have commenced a 6-month trial of Copilot for Microsoft 365. Participating agencies are trialling new ways to enhance productivity and develop skills, capabilities, and preparedness for generative artificial intelligence (AI). Over 7,400 public servants are participating in the trial.

The trial runs from January to June 2024, coordinated by the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA). It allows APS staff and agencies to innovate and explore how generative AI might support routine, day-to-day tasks - such as meeting summaries and action items, internal correspondence, or presentation outlines - to free more of the day for detailed, substantive work that people do best.

Chris Fechner, Chief Executive Officer for the DTA, says that the government is committed to embracing AI in a safe, ethical and responsive way, and fostering an innovative culture in the APS.

"Government should be an exemplar in transparency, risk management and governance of emerging technologies such as generative AI".

"By having agencies with different types of work participate - from the Department of Industry, Science and Resources to the Department of Finance and the National Disability Insurance Agency - the Australian Government will better understand how to harness generative AI in a safe, ethical and responsible way."

A complete list of participating agencies is available below.

Guidance for participating agencies

"The DTA, in partnership with the AI in Government Taskforce, is leading the evaluation of the trial," Mr Fechner explains.

Participating agencies are rolling out the generative AI tool according to their own circumstances and requirements, including their security and technical readiness.

Participating staff are required to undertake learning module and knowledge assessment specific to the trial. Both of the learning tools build upon the existing Interim guidance for agency use of generative AI that offer direction through the application of golden rules, tactical guidance, use cases, and five principles in practice:

1. Accountability. APS staff-members must be able to explain, justify, and take ownership of any advice or decisions that where generative AI tools were used to assist the process.
2. Transparency and explainability. Agencies should consider appropriately marking where generative AI was used, and any information generated must be critically examined.
3. Privacy protection and security. The government should not use public generative AI tools with any classified, personal, or sensitive information and should follow the relevant laws and policies.
4. Fairness and human-centred values. The government should avoid biases in generative AI tools that can harm some groups and should involve relevant communities in decision-making.
5. Human, societal, and environmental wellbeing. The government should use generative AI tools in a way that improves the wellbeing of the community, respects right holders, as well as carefully considering Indigenous data sovereignty and governance.

These five principles in practice expand on Australia's 8 AI Ethics Principles, a voluntary framework to reduce the risk of negative impact by maintaining safe, reliable, and fair outcomes for Australians.

Australia's data and digital approach

This trial continues the Australian Government's commitment to improve how the APS adopts and uses data and digital technologies as outlined by the Digital and Data Government Strategy (the Strategy). This strategy identifies several areas of improvement, including enhancing service delivery, advancing interoperability, replacing outdated technologies, exploring the use of new technologies, updating legislation, and leading by example.

Mr Fechner links this latest generative AI trial, as driven by the Strategy, to Australia's recent recognition as a world leader in digital government. Australia debuted at 5th in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Digital Government Index for 2023.

"The APS and the DTA will keep looking for opportunities to lift our Digital Government performance as evidenced by our inaugural OECD ranking and strive to improve on it in future years for the benefit of all Australians," says Mr Fechner.

"These goals go hand in hand with the Government for the Future mission that strives to take advantage of emerging technologies to deliver secure, ethical, and modern data and digital technologies by 2030."

Portfolio	Entity
Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry	Cotton Research and Development Corporation Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Fisheries Research and Development Corporation Grains Research and Development Corporation Regional Investment Corporation Rural Industries Research and Development trading as AgriFutures Australia
Attorney-General's	Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission Australian Federal Police Australian Financial Security Authority Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman
Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water	Australian Institute of Marine Science Australian Renewable Energy Agency Department Of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water Bureau of Meteorology
Education	Australian Research Council Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency
Employment and Workplace Relations	Comcare Department of Employment and Workplace Relations Fair Work Commission Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman
Finance	Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation Department of Finance Parliamentary Workplace Support Services Digital Transformation Agency
Foreign Affairs and Trade	Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research Australian Trade and Investment Commission Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Tourism Australia
Health and Aged Care	Australian Digital Health Agency Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency Department of Health and Aged Care (incl TGA and OTA) Health Direct Australia National Health and Medical Research Council
Home Affairs	Department of Home Affairs (Immigration and Border Protection)
Industry, Science and Resources	Australian Building Codes Board Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Department of Industry, Science and Resources Geoscience Australia IP Australia
Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts	Australian Transport Safety Bureau Infrastructure Australia
Parliamentary Departments (not a portfolio)	Department of Parliamentary Services Parliamentary Budget Office
Prime Minister and Cabinet	Australian National Audit Office Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General
Social Services	Australian Institute of Family Studies National Disability Insurance Agency
Treasury	Australian Prudential Regulation Authority Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation Australian Securities and Investments Commission Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Australian Taxation Office Department of the Treasury Productivity Commission Tax Practitioners Board

/Public Release. This material from the originating organization/author(s) might be of the point-in-time nature, and edited for clarity, style and length. Mirage.News does not take institutional positions or sides, and all views, positions, and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author(s).View in full here.

Here is the link to the release:

https://www.miragenews.com/aps-tests-generative-ai-for-government-use-1188177/

I have to say I wondered at this rather ‘big-bang’ approach to the introduction of this technology. You have to wonder just how the various targets for trial were selected.

Whatever the reasons it will be interesting to see just how the results of the trial are reported and what learnings emerge. (Let me know if you spot any outcome reports!)

Ai certainly seems to be flavour of the month at present!

David.