Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a household device over the past few years. More recently, use of AI and specifically large language models has skyrocketed thanks to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and others. Many people use AI’s incredible power for mundane everyday tasks, but it has far greater potential. The adoption of AI into fields such as medicine and healthcare carries extraordinary benefits in terms of helping streamline workflows and aiding in diagnostics that have the potential to save countless lives. While there are numerous benefits there are also significant challenges, ranging from the tangible problems of data and infrastructure to the intangible problems of ethics. Some of the benefits and challenges are exacerbated by the unique context of the South African (SA) environment. This review outlines some of the key clinical applications and ethical considerations required for large-scale AI implementation in the SA health sector.
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