AI: a tangential view from the medical writing field

Presentation review

Ailish Maher opened her presentation with a summary of some of the key topics discussed during the EMWA Symposium on AI in Medical Writing. Foremost among these was ethics, insofar as some of the texts used to train generative AI models are copyrighted, confidential, protected, or simply private. Apart from traditional copyright issues, genAI models can be used to create similar content at no cost, thus undermining the market for original work. Another topic discussed was AI and translation. On the upside, AI can enhance our efficiency by automating repetitive tasks, providing useful suggestions for elusive terminology, and even clarifying unfamiliar concepts, techniques, or procedures. On the downside, AI can hallucinate, in other words, present false or misleading information as fact.

After this initial presentation, in groups we discussed how AI has affected our work, what we use it for, and what we have learnt from our experience with this technology. Many participants reported positive experiences with AI as an aid to translation and editing, while others voiced concerns about data protection issues and the hidden costs of this technology.

In the second half, Ailish showed us how she had tested ChatGPT for a recent translation. After fine-tuning her prompts, she found that the app correctly interpreted the data in two complex tables, created alphabetical lists of abbreviations with their expanded forms, translated and explained the meaning of technical terms, and even summarized its own extremely wordy explanations when prompted to do so. However, it was less helpful – even misleading – with other terms, where it proved no match for a translator’s intuition and experience. The session ended with a lively discussion and many insightful comments from participants.

In conclusion, it’s a crazy AI world out there. We need to explore the latest AI tools and decide whether they can be a help or a hindrance in our work.

Getting started in legal translation

Review by Jennifer Gray