A brief guide to AI for doctors

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By Beth Roberts

Artificial intelligence technology is accelerating and starting to crop up in clinical practice. But what do terms like ‘machine learning’ and ‘generative AI’ actually mean? Here is a quick guide for doctors.

“We're on the verge of what is actually a fundamental change in the way that humans and computers interact,” says Dr Rishi Das-Gupta, chief executive of the Health Innovation Network.

The reason? AI - rapidly becoming a central part of the technological landscape, it is also beginning to play a part in healthcare. From the potential to design new drugs, to cancer screening and identifying biomarkers for different diseases, you could soon encounter AI more regularly in your work.

But this technology, and the myriad terms that come with it, can be hard to dissect. Here is a brief guide to some of the key terms you might encounter.

Artificial intelligence

In everyday use, AI has become a generalised term to refer to a computer’s ability to make decisions and perform tasks independently, in a way that mimics a human’s behaviour and intelligence.¹ Most of the time, AI systems have an ability to learn and adapt.²