In this episode of Raising Tech, our host, Patrick Leonard, has a intriguing conversation with John Middlemore, our Director of Engineering, about the impact ChatGPT is having on Senior Living communities.
Learn more about the pros and cons of using ChatGPT and discover how Senior Living communities can leverage the benefits of using ChatGPT while avoiding the potential risks.
Raising Tech is powered by Parasol Alliance, The Strategic Planning & Full-Service IT Partner exclusively serving Senior Living Communities.
In this episode of Raising Tech, our host, Patrick Leonard, has a intriguing conversation with John Middlemore, our Director of Engineering, about the impact ChatGPT is having on Senior Living communities.
Learn more about the pros and cons of using ChatGPT and discover how Senior Living communities can leverage the benefits of using ChatGPT while avoiding the potential risks.
Raising Tech is powered by Parasol Alliance, The Strategic Planning & Full-Service IT Partner exclusively serving Senior Living Communities.
Welcome back to Raising Tech, a podcast about all things technology and senior living. I'm your host, Patrick Leonard. Today we're going to talk about something that is all over the news these days and a lot of people are talking about, but we're hoping to put our own perspective on it. We're gonna talk about generative AI and in particular ChatGPT of course, and really want to talk about the implications ChatGPT has on senior living community operators. So with that, I'm excited to introduce our listeners to our guest today, John Middlemore, who's actually our Director of Engineering here at Parasol Alliance. John , welcome to the show.
John Middlemore:Thanks for having me, Patrick.
Patrick Leonard:Absolutely. Thanks for being here. So to start things off, before we dive into the topic today, John , do you mind just giving our listeners a little bit of background about your yourself and kind of career in it?
John Middlemore:Absolutely. I am coming up to 30 years in it. I'm a bit of a dinosaur in the IT world. I actually started out in mainframe computing 30 years ago and punch cards and stuff like that. Over the space of 30 years, I've worked in pretty much in every industry, finance, transportation, healthcare , state and local government. So I've pretty much covered all the bases and all the industries.
Patrick Leonard:Awesome. And senior living of course is now your favorite, I'm sure.
John Middlemore:It's absolutely
Patrick Leonard:Awesome. So to dive into our topic a little bit, for those who aren't familiar again these days, everybody's familiar in some sense, whether it be the best information they're reading about it or hearing about it or not for better or for worse, but for those who aren't as familiar, can you summarize for our listeners what exactly is this concept of generative AI and why is it making such a big buzz right now across the world?
John Middlemore:Absolutely. So basically there's a number of AI algorithms out there. Generative AI is based on something that the AI algorithm has been trained on. Unlike traditional AI systems that are designed to recognize patterns and make predictions, generative AI creates new content in the form of images or audio, text, etc. and most of those in the recent ones around this are cause of ChatGPT.
Patrick Leonard:Yeah, absolutely. So outside of ChatGPT, AI is being used in many forms already and I didn't even realize it myself until I started to really dig into this. That whole concept of ChatGPT and really understanding a little bit more about the concept of generative AI and AI in general. It's been around in many forms for a while now. I think that people like myself might not have even realized it. So can you describe a little bit about those common use cases and how these are different than the concept around ChatGPT itself?
John Middlemore:Yeah, I would imagine the biggest one that everyone actually does know about, even though they probably don't realize it, is self-driving cars. So that's probably the biggest use that's known throughout the world. Most people don't associate it with AI, but it is actually a form of AI, basically AI in cars. It observes speed direction of over cars and it identifies specific actions regarding its surrounding items. So it sees a car obviously breaking in front of it. The AI knows that puts on the brake of your car and stops you. If it is on a highway and it's judging distance and speed, it'll speed up, slow down once it judges how far a car in front is or someone falls in front of you or someone slammed on their brake . So that's probably the most popular form of AI. Again, obviously people may notice AI in security cameras, right? Facial recognition, everyone has an iPhone today. You take out your iPhone, you put it up to your face, it recognizes your face and and that unlocks it. That again, is a form of AI.
Patrick Leonard:Yeah, absolutely. And even Alexa, Siri, these are all things leveraging AI on every day . It's been around for while , but it's really just getting a different formats now . So thanks describing for us .
John Middlemore:Yeah , absolutely . I just don't think we normally realize in our day to day interaction with them as being AI devices.
Patrick Leonard:Sure. So let's bring it back a little bit to the senior living industry use case here. Again, there's a lot of buzz out there, negative, positive, trying to, you know, tow this line between how to best leverage this. So particularly as it relates to senior living communities itself and there's already a lot of compliance regulation around the senior living industry. So can we dive into, first let's talk about the positives. What are some of the positive use cases for senior living community staff members and even residents to leverage the power of something like a ChatGPT or generative AI?
John Middlemore:Yeah, I think we touched base on some of these in the previous questions. So smart home devices, monitoring, alerting in the home, digital voice assistance . And like I said earlier, you know, opening your iPhone, those are all positives in the senior living community. Obviously in the nursing sector as well. You know, AI is helping diagnose and prescribe medicines, etc. So you can see a doctor on , on your phone, right, on an app. And part of that initial consultation is AI based , right? You answer questions, it decides where you , what those answers are, where they lead you to and it directs you to a specialist or a general doctor , etc. So that is all based on AI in the background, deciding on your answers, where to direct you.
Patrick Leonard:Yeah, for sure. And I know just my world of , from a marketing perspective, I know a lot of people are leveraging it to a certain extent. I know I've used it to even provide outlines for some content that I'm looking to write up, but I know I do have to be careful in what this thing's spitting out and telling me, right? Cause it's not at all useful. It's not replacing the human touch and the power of human writing by any means I have found, but it , it can just be a thought provoker, it can provide an outline. So I know a lot of marketers in the senior living space are talking about those use cases a little bit as well. Now on the flip side of things, <laugh> , if we play a little bit of devil's advocate around generative AI and ChatGPT certainly can be used unfortunately just like a lot of things in a negative way that might impact the senior living community operators and their residents. So can you talk a little bit about that and really what folks should be weary of when leveraging a tool like this at their community?
John Middlemore:So because it's a learning system, any piece of data that you input into ChatGPT or other AI programs, it basically stores that information forever and it then uses that information to provide answers for anyone else who asks questions. So in this case, you have to be very careful what data you give it, right? So you, you have to be, make sure you don't give it any personal data, anything like social security numbers, banking, even medical history. So whatever you tell these AI systems, they will store that information forever. ChatGPT most of its answers are actually based on information it already gathered and ended in 2021 . So it's not an online system. So it's not learning, it's not gonna provide an answer for data it found yesterday. So it's storing that data, it will store that data forever. So whatever information you give out, it will be out there in the general public globally, forever. It's not gonna get deleted and it's not going to be secure because the system itself uses that information to give you the answer. So if you, you know, specifically gave it John Middlemore's security number and then someone else in the globe said, "Hey, can you tell me what John Middlemore's social security number is?" ChatGPT would give you the answer.
Patrick Leonard:It's a little scary to think about <laugh>. So with that in mind, k ind o f talking about, you know, how w e can use it in a positive way. Some of the things to be weary of in t he negatives, are there steps that senior living community l eaders should be taking to make sure that their staff and their residents are protected from these negatives while at the same time giving them the freedom to kind of leverage the power of this tool?
John Middlemore:Absolutely. Communities already have policies in place around usage through email, especially medical records obviously compliant to HIPAA regulations. Entities should have a policy, a written policy in place, on the use of any of these AI tools. And it should have the staff educated in their use so they can use them safely and in a way where they're not giving out sensitive information.
Patrick Leonard:That makes sense. And so along that same vein, are you aware of any type of training or other resources available to folks who don't know where to turn? Cause I imagine many senior living community leaders out there, you know, may have a framework like a lot of us are working knowledge of things to be cautious about or things to leverage in a positive way. But as far as actually creating these policies and developing a training program so that people are using it the right way, are you aware of any resources available out there? Is it something you should reach out to your IT department or where would you turn if you were someone who wasn't as savvy in this area as yoursel, for example?
John Middlemore:I would actually turn to a company like Parasol Alliance. We're very much head of the game on this. We already have an in-house policy related to ChatGPT and we're very much able to help with training and policy creation for these communities.
Patrick Leonard:Director of Engineering here, folks, you heard it first do it a little sales pitch for us here on the episode. It wasn't even me so <laugh> . But yeah , whether it be Parasol Alliance or whoever your current IT resource is, definitely a great place to start. It sounds like if you don't have a policy around it already, definitely put something in place and develop some formal type of education and training for your staff and residents. So that's great. So I guess at this stage in the game, John , are the concerns around the potential risks and the negative outweighing the positives at this point? In your opinion , should communities be considering restricting their staff and residents from having access to this tool altogether at this point? Or do you think that's a little extreme?
John Middlemore:Yeah, I think that's a little extreme. I think like any emerging technology, you have to be careful and you have to make sure that you do have a policy around it. You also have to make sure that you do train your staff as well. But I think with all technologies, they all have benefits and they all have downsides. It's having the ability to actually pick out where and when in the cycle of the emergence of the technology that you need to use it and how you need to use it and adhere to a policy as that technology grows, right? So the policy today for these items is going to be a lot different than in 10 years time. When it's more mature, it's more widespread and we're probably using it in everyday life. But any technology, you know, email has been around for close to 30 years in one form or another. We still today have policies around email with every company that we work for day to day . We should have policies even at home when we're using Google or any other kind of email to protect ourselves. But also to , you know , in a work environment to protect the company, to protect the staff and residents or customers. It's important to have that policy.
Patrick Leonard:Yeah , that makes a lot of sense. I guess looking towards the future and where this thing could possibly go, I know it's impossible to predict, but if you kind of got your crystal ball out, what do you think's next in this space? I mean, I've heard things as crazy as reproducing music is happening right now. A new Beatles song came out from John Lennon h imself that was reproduced through this tool. So it's just crazy to think about. It seems so advanced already, but there also seems to be so little regulation around it. So from your opinion, what's next? Where are things going in the short and long t erm as far as g eneral AI and ChatGPT?
John Middlemore:Yeah, again, I , something you touched on earlier about marketing, right? I think you'll find in the next few years a lot of companies will start making commercials in the normal sense. They're going to use this to make a commercial. Movie companies are going to make , use this to create movies. So we may be seeing less actors in the future and we'll see artificially generated actors, music as well. We're probably going to see this a lot more in our daily lives where , you know, self-driving cars, we're probably gonna get delivery systems for companies like Amazon and that are powered by this and we don't have people in trucks anymore, you know, delivering this to our door. I think as far as the regulation of this goes, I think it started outside of the US already, I was reading an article the other day that in Europe they're already putting rules around this . I think maybe Europe sometimes is ahead of the US in that respect. So I would imagine that first we'll be adhering to any regulations that come out of Europe will probably follow those regulations in some form or over that. Normally what happens a lot in technology anyway because they have strict data regulations in Europe more so than the US. So I think we're definitely gonna see a lot more regulation and we're going to see a lot of things in our day-to-day life. You know, when we go to McDonald's, we order a burger. We may not see people there anymore making that burger. It'll be the robot in communities that we work with. I know we've been to trade shows and that they're already having robots that deliver food and that to residents. So I think very much so more of that in the short term and long term .
Patrick Leonard:Now you got me hungry for a Big Mac, John.
John Middlemore:Made by a robot.
Patrick Leonard:<laugh> <laugh> .
John Middlemore:I actually read that there is a McDonald's somewhere in the US, I don't know where it is , but it's fully staffed with AI and robots and there's no people there. So it's amazing how fast this technology is actually getting out in the world in a practical purpose. Far more so than maybe that's happened previously. I'm old enough, I can remember cell phones when they were like bricks and you had to carry them around in on a wheel transport device. Cause the battery is that low. Relatively speaking, it's taken 20, 30 years since the smartphone came on board . The speed of technology advancement and getting into our daily lives has increased. So I don't think it will be 30 years before we see the full impact of AI. It's likely to be in the short term .
Patrick Leonard:Crazy to think about.
John Middlemore:Absolutely!
Patrick Leonard:Well, John , thanks so much for your time today. I think this discussion was great. I personally learned something in it as well and I know our listeners will. Are there any final thoughts or words of wisdom even that you wanted to instill on our listeners before we part ways today ?
John Middlemore:I would just say technology as a whole is beneficial to us all. But like anything in life, we need to make sure we have safeguards and security in place around them. And I think that's, again, where companies like ours come in to play, right? If we can go out and do the research and make sure that people don't have to do that and then advise accordingly.
Patrick Leonard:Yeah, absolutely. It's a full-time job in itself.
John Middlemore:Absolutely.
Patrick Leonard:Well John , thanks again for taking the time to educate our listeners today on this topic, and listeners, thanks for tuning in for another great episode of Raising Tech! If you have any feedback at all on this episode or topic idea, or want to be on the episode yourself, please reach out on our website at www.ParasolAlliance.com. Have a great one!