The Big Unknown: A Journey into Generative AI's Transformative Effect on Professions, starting with Medical Practitioners

AI is expected to have a significant and socially relevant impact, particularly in the healthcare sector. To what extent and how medical professionals can use generative AI to augment their own expert knowledge to improve their performance is an open question. Generative AI promises performance boosts, but many tasks in medical professions have limited tolerance for error, a strong ethical component and require a thorough understanding of decision-making processes, potentially limiting full AI automation.

With randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in laboratory settings in the Netherlands, Kenia, and Indonesia (150 participants per RCT), we will assess the potential augmentative effects of generative AI technology on the core tasks of medical professionals in two occupations: i.e. general practitioners, and nurse practitioners. Laboratory settings have previously been used to assess how AI assistance impacts radiologist decision making (Agarwal et al, 2023); and the augmentative effect of generative AI on professional writing tasks (Noy & Zhang, 2023). By simulating patient profiles and healthcare professionals’ decisions, lab RCTs reduce ethical issues associated with field interventions; they also provide unbiased measurement of causal effects of AI that can inform policymaking. The design is also scalable to different countries and occupations e.g., lawyers.

This research project is a collaboration between Maastricht School of Management (MSM), The Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA), Aga Khan University and Universitas Indonesia. The project will run from May 2024 until May 2025.