Photo by Mike Setchell on Unsplash

One of our key considerations in launching the AI Pioneers project was the difference between AI in Higher and school education and AI in Vocational. Education and Training. This was based on the dual role of AI in VET, AI for teaching and learning and AI as the subject of VET occupations.

Over the past three years we have seen the uneven speed of adoption of AI in the VET. curriculum, largely reflecting the speed of adoption in. different occupations. AI has become widely used in graphic design and in computer programing. It is also being adopted for many tasks and application in engineering. Although the speed of use of AI for teaching and learning varies between different countries and different vocational schools, we have noted uptake in subjects related to these industries and particularly engineering.

We have seen lesser or slower uptake in health and social care occupations. Yet a recent study in the UK has found a third of UK citizens have used artificial intelligence for emotional support, companionship or social interaction, according to the AI Security Institute (AISI) who said nearly one in 10 people used systems like chatbots for emotional purposes on a weekly basis, and 4% daily and reported in the Guardian Newspaper.

“People are increasingly turning to AI systems for emotional support or social interaction,” AISI said in its first Frontier AI Trends report. “While many users report positive experiences, recent high-profile cases of harm underline the need for research into this area, including the conditions under which harm could occur, and the safeguards that could enable beneficial use. The Guardian says that AISI based its research on a representative survey of 2,028 UK participants. It found the most common type of AI used for emotional purposes was “general purpose assistants” such as ChatGPT, accounting for nearly six out of 10 uses, followed by voice assistants including Amazon Alex.

The AISA report follows closely on a report by the UK government on occupations in demand which found the health and social care industry has the largest number of workers in high demand occupations (2.7m), those that are in either critical or elevated demand.  The occupations with the largest number of workers in this industry are care workers and home carers (809k), generalist medical practitioners (148k) and specialist medical practitioners (110k).

I wonder what the AISI report my mean in terms of the future curriculum for training of health and social care workers