SS and AI. What do we think of this then?

You're describing machine learning, not AI. They're not the same thing.

The issue with using it in this context is that there are legal and real-world consequences for inaccuracy; who's going to be responsible, the first time a child dies from abuse that wasn't flagged because the "AI" tools missed some key details in an interview?

And then the next step is inevitably taken - "Hey, we need more social workers but there just aren't enough candidates...but also hey, we can hire less-experienced workers and they can just lean on the AI tools a bit more, right?".

This is what I mean by inappropriate use of such tools. They're not a magic wand, but they will absolutely be treated as such because - as a wise man once said - any sufficiently advanced technology will appear as magic to the uneducated. That's why we have this belief in the population that AI can do anything, when anybody who's worked with it (as I have, extensively) knows that it absolutely can't.

I use AI to write clinical letters, it's fabulous. All I need to do is to edit in any identifiable information offline. It saves me masses of time and I can see more patients instead of drowning in paperwork.
I also use it to write clinical meeting summaries.
Scanning for missing information and mistakes is a lot faster than writing everything from scratch.
If they (the trust) do adopt something which is secure and accurate, I am comfortable outsourcing admin tasks to AI

Isn’t the AI irrelevant there? Anything generated should have been checked and edited. That’s more on a par with crap notes or a report that misses the point. These do happen and obviously shouldn’t

Right so I am in tech. AI used in this capacity saves so much time and accurate notes on things like Teams or Zoom calls. It literally takes notes and can draft emails etc

AI has been used for years already, detecting bank fraud etc I mean, predictive text on your phone is.

The article ended with that.
"Maris Stratulis, the national director of the British Association of Social Workers England, said: “We call for the regulation of AI, a national framework of ethical principles for its use and transparency about when AI applications are being used and by what industries to ensure accountability to citizens and uphold human rights"

I think run the pilots and implement the above. Labour is already in the process of drawing up legislation, it should have been done a year ago, we knew this was coming.

However, we should only be investing in this if we have the information sharing technology that we should have got in 2012. As long as a seperate budget is created, then it could a good thing. I'd like to move towards personal responsibility in SW/management and this tool would be needed for that. Those that ignored Star Hobson and Arthur should be held accountable, as well as other cases. We've just had numerous police officers charged and sacked for not following procedures and/or doing their job. I think it needs extending to other professions.

The problem with the use of AI-like tools (LLMs like ChatGPT aren't really AI, they're an AI simulation - more like "predictive text on steroids", really) isn't their existence, but rather being put to inappropriate uses.

When they're used to save time by people who are already skilled enough to do the job in the first place, or supervised heavily by humans, they're brilliant.

The problem comes when they're used to replace humans in an interaction chain...and that seems to be their purpose as interpreted by management just about everywhere.

In the context of the article, it strikes me that the main problem is when it misses critical information - which it absolutely will do. Unlike a deterministic system, where there would be an audit trail allowing somebody to fix the bug that led to the omission, the "AI" in question will simply be a black box. They can try to influence its behaviour, but there are absolutely no guarantees about how it will behave in future.

It's a terrible idea, but one which will be forced into existence everywhere by people who have no business making those decisions due to a comprehensive lack of knowledge and wilful ignorance of facts in favour of marketing potential.