Artificial Intelligence and Nursing: Freedom From the Mundane or Subservience to a New Nobility

To explore the notion of post-humanism and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on society, nursing and healthcare.

Discursive paper.

Critical reflection on concepts relating to post-humanism and the impact of AI, sourced from contemporary and established literature.

Information was drawn from a wide range of empirical and theoretical resources, including health services research through to sociology and philosophy, including newspapers, popular science as well as peer reviewed articles.

At the extremes of opinion, AI is either feared as presaging the end of our current civilisation, or lauded as the beginning of a new leisure age. For many, reservations include: a lack of AI intervention transparency, rendering accurate description, replication and implementation impossible; the overwhelming presence of 'spin' overstating impacts for patients; the replacement of relationship-based person-centred fundamental care by 'algorithm-based care' in nursing defined by the language of precision diagnostics and treatment; AI as the new unchallenged "King, Priest and Feudal Lord", leading to professional infantilisation and a loss of critical thinking; the cementation of human exceptionalism and the right to exploit, or destroy, our world.

AI not only presents a potential benefit but also a severe threat to a model of fundamental nursing care defined by patient/nurse relationships and patient-centredness, carried out by nurses applying the principles of critical reasoning.

Defending nursing in an age of AI will require nurses to reiterate anew the importance of relationship-based person-centred fundamental care. Where AI-based nursing interventions are proposed, nurses, whether registered or not, must remain critical thinkers, appraise the source data and guard against descending into unthinking subservience to machine-generated 'facts' of unchecked provenance.

None required.

This article did not include patient or public involvement in its design, conduct, or reporting.