AI Literacy: Is it safe to use ChatGPT for your Task?

 

In the recent WHSLA Wisdom Chat about AI, WHSLA Member, Leslie Chistensen called out this very useful flow chart by Aleksander Tiulkanov.

For the sake of AI literacy, these are important questions to ask.

It's NOT ok to take AI answers at face value.  You need to dig in and evaluate the sources to make sure it's not hallucinating, like your drunk uncle.  

Once you evaluate all the sources, is it really a timesaver?

References:

Link to pdf version of high res. flowchart.

Is it High Time to Take ChatGPT Offline? by Aleksander Tiulkanov

Upcoming WHSLA Wisdom Chat July 25: Ebling Librarians will talk about Generative AI (including OpenEvidence)

Curious about generative AI? 

Attend the next WHSLA Wisdom Chat on 7/25/2025 at 1pm!

Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere these days. As librarians, navigating the AI landscape can seem overwhelming. This upcoming Wisdom Chat, presented by Ebling Librarians Leslie Christensen, Lia Vellardita, Susan Vandagriff, and Paije Wilson from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will provide a critical look at popular generative AI tools within the context of literature summarization and searching. Specifically, the chat will include:

• A brief overview of the different types of AI and how they relate to each other
• The benefits and limitations of summarizers for individual articles, with an example from Elicit
• The benefits and limitations of summarizers for a body of literature, with examples from Perplexity and OpenEvidence
• An in-depth, critical discussion of OpenEvidence
• The benefits and limitations of chatbots for the creation of PubMed search strategies, with an example from ChatGPT

Attendees will walk away with knowledge of the benefits and limitations of some available generative AI tools, awareness of these tools' potential applications, and fundamental skills on how to approach these tools using a critical lens.

Join us for this presentation, followed by our usual round of sharing.

When: 1 pm on July 25, 2025 via Zoom

WHSLA Wisdom Chats are open to all WHSLA members in good standing.  If you are a current member and did not receive an invitation, please contact Michele Matucheski, WHSLA Wisdom Chat Coordinator filling in for Barb Ruggieri this year.  

AI in Medicine with Dr. Brian Patterson : WHSLA Web Conference 23 Summary

Friday afternoon of the WHSLA conference featured a fireside chat with Dr. Brian Patterson, Associate Professor and Medical Informatics Director for Predictive Analytics and Clinical Decision Support, UW Health.

Dr. Patterson shared his knowledge of artificial intelligence including large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and how they have evoloved over time and will continue to evolve. 

What are people doing with AI in Medicine? People are using 3rd party apps on the web like Nabla Copilot, DocsGPT.  Many companies have outlawed these tools *, but people will be using them anyway on their personal devices because they see the value in it.

Dr. Patterson expects there will eventually be integration with existing IT products -- including the EPIC project that you mentioned--as businesses license closed shop versions that won't recycle and sell company secrets.  

He suggested that AI would be more of a trust-but-verify copilot, "like a book-smart intern who comes in hung-over sometimes" vs. "the crystal ball is broken if it doesn't always get the right answer."

• ChatGPT for discharge instructions
• Drs will spend less time on documentation and other drudge work, which may reduce burnout
• These tools make it very easy to draft content, but the end-user is still responsible for the final draft.

During the Q&A portion questions were posed about the reliability of ChatGPT especially in regards to citing accuracte evidence and not hallucinating (i.e. making up citations). This is something that ChatGPT might get better at in the future, but human authors using LLM tools will always need to verify, confirm, and attest to the content they create with the help of ChatGPT. 

Dr. Patterson shared that he has been surprised that the uptake and interest in adopting new LLM technologies has happened as quickly as it has. Right now UW-Health is working with Epic to use AI: UW Health using Microsoft AI in Epic Systems medical records (news article). It's likely that more and more health systems will allow uses of AI as the technology evolves and the benefits are seen. One area Dr. Patterson hopes AI can help with is by decreasing paperwork burdens such as charting on providers. An April 5, 2023 story on NPR talked about just that.

For more reading, check out this book mentioned by Dr. Patterson: AI Revolution in Medicine: GPT-4 and Beyond. It may tell the all-too-rosey side of the AI story. 

For another POV, check out this recent Medlib-L post on AI for cataloging and literature searches. 

Prompt by JPxG, model by Boris Dayma, upscaler by Xintao Wang, Liangbin Xie et al. (Apache License 2.0 or BSD), via Wikimedia Commons

AI Roundup: Prompt Engineering 101 by The Advisory Board

Prompt engineering — the practice of improving your prompts to AI models such as ChatGPT — may sound complicated, but it's easier than you think. Here are five tips to get you started from Advisory Board's Thomas Seay.

1) Give examples of your desired output.

2) Ask the AI to adopt the role of a specific expert.

3) Explain how the AI's reply will be used.

4) Ask the AI to think step-by-step.

5) Ask for multiple responses.

Read the story for more details on each of the 5 points above.

From The Scholarly Kitchen: Was ChatGPT Set up to Fail? Choosing the Right Tools and the Right Prompts is Essential for LLM Discovery

 

 

Aug 30, 2023  by  Dustin Smith Guest Post – Was ChatGPT Set Up to Fail? Choosing the Right Tools and the Right Prompts is Essential for LLM Discovery Was a recent Scholarly Kitchen piece analyzing the capabilities of ChatGPT a fair test? What happens if you run a similar test with an improved prompt on LLMs that are internet connected and up to date? READ MORE

AI and Medical Librarianship webinar recording

I tuned into a fascinating webinar from NNLM Region 6 earlier this week: AI, Higher Education, and Medical Librarianship: Opportunities and Risks presented by Michael Flierl from Ohio State. What I especially liked about it was the discussion throughout and examples of how AI and ChatGPT are being used in educational settings to teach things like critical thinking and analysis. It definitely sparked ideas for me on how I might weave those themes into my thinking of and teaching about AI and ChatGPT more specifically. 

The recording is now available on NNLM's Region 6 YouTube channel. 

Exploring ChatGPT: Navigating its Implications for an Academic Medical Center [Podcast]

Exploring ChatGPT: Navigating its Implications for an Academic Medical Center (Part 1)

Delve into ChatGPT and its pros and cons with respect to medical education, and medical and scientific publishing. We discuss concerns raised by the medical library community, guidelines for responsible usage in research papers and the broader implications of AI advancement. Join them us as we debate the idea of a moratorium on advanced training for AI and its potential threats to and opportunities for academic medical centers.

 

Exploring ChatGPT: Navigating its Implications for an Academic Medical Center (Part 2)

In this episode, we continue our conversation about ChatGPT and its pros and cons with respect to medical education, and medical and scientific publishing, addressing concerns raised by the medical library community, guidelines for responsible usage in research papers and the broader implications of AI advancement. Join them as they debate the idea of a moratorium on advanced training for AI and its potential threats to and opportunities for academic medical centers. 

NPR's Short Wave podcast: Will artificial intelligence help — or hurt — medicine?

 "A doctor's job is to help patients. With that help, often comes lots and lots of paperwork. That's where some startups are betting artificial intelligence may come in. The hope is that chatbots could generate data like treatment plans that would let doctors spend less time on paperwork and more time with their patients. But some academics warn biases and errors could hurt patients."

Dr AI Lied to Me: AI platform has great potential for use in medicine, but huge pitfalls, says Jeremy Faust, MD

In this video, Jeremy Faust, MD, editor-in-chief of MedPage Today, discusses the impressive but concerning results after using OpenAI to create medical charts and obtain diagnoses for hypothetical patients.

The page also includes a transcript of his remarks.  

This is a follow-up to an Inside Medicine newsletter he wrote on Substack called "Fun with OpenAI, medical charting, and diagnostics. (Also: I just got lied to by a bot)."

opens in a new tab or window."

Read more and watch the full video [6 min. 36 sec.]

Navigating the Legal Aspects of ChatGT in Medicine

 

Recording and Slides Now Available for "Navigating the Legal Landscape of ChatGPT in Medicine"

Thank you to all who joined the seminar. The recording and slides are now available. Watch the seminar recording. Access the presentation slides.

This program was hosted by The Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine (I.AIM) at Northwestern University in Chicago.  It was first broadcast on March 15, 2023.

Mohammad Hosseini, one of the panelists, described the new AI with large-language models as a 3-headed Chimera in which 

• Head 1 is like a search engine / Librarian who shows you were information is.
• Head 2 is a quick reader who can analyze content and context, but sometimes hallucinates, gets drunk and lies.
• Head 3 is a grammar guru who can also do quick synthesis

Here is a description of the session:

There are abundant possibilities for using large language model technologies such as ChatGPT to improve and expand access to services. But there are risks, including privacy, bias, and unsafe systems that do not work. How might existing and emerging laws address the risks and help us capture the benefits of AI for medicine?

Join I.AIM for a panel discussion with

• Daniel W. Linna Jr., JD, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and McCormick School of Engineering, and 
• Andrea Lee Linna, JD, Partner and Co-Lead of the Digital Health, Technology and Innovation practice group at McGuireWoods LLP. They'll talk about the legal landscape for AI in medicine and will share potential directions for future regulation. 

• Cathy Gao, MD, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, 
• Mohammad Hosseini, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar in Preventative Medicine, and 
• Alex Carvalho, MD, MPH, Infectious Diseases, will share clinical and ethical perspectives on how legal quandaries of AI technologies may affect healthcare.

Become an I.AIM Member Interested in joining the Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine? Stay up to date on the latest news and events by signing up today!

Join I.AIM Now