The technology explosion we are witnessing over the last few decades has brought novel, breath-taking discoveries that advances health care while simultaneously posing complex questions that baffle us. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest such new technology. The term AI was coined in 1950s1 and refers to the idea of machines being capable of performing human tasks.
Other terms noteworthy in this context are Large Language Models (LLM), Large Vision Models (LVM) and Multimodality Models (MM) - all sub-fields of AI. LLMs have revolutionized how computers understand and generate human language, and such neural networks possesse remarkable versatility to comprehend, analyse, and produce text/s that are even better and more comprehensive than that of a literate human.2
LVM represents a frontier in AI research, honing their abilities to decipher and interpret visual data, predominantly images and videos. These models excel in a myriad of tasks, including object detection, image classification, image generation, and captioning. Clearly, they will play a critical role in precise radiological image interpretation in the future. Their advancements underscore the burgeoning potential of AI to comprehend and interact with the visual world in ways akin to human cognition.3 MM marks a pivotal advancement in AI, adept at analysing and synthesizing diverse data modalities, encompassing text and images. These, by integrating methodologies from language and vision models, adeptly tackle tasks necessitating the fusion of disparate data domains.4
In this context International Dental Journal I(IDJ) is proud to announce, beginning today, a pioneering effort in the dental publishing industry to devote an earmarked section termed `AI and dentistry` as a standing feature in each of its issues. Here, we shall provide contemporaneous rapidly moving developments in AI including LLM, LVM and MMs and digital technology and application of these sciences in dentistry. Such areas will include the following subcategories of AI:
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Oral Disease Prediction and Prevention
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Patient Care and Management
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Teledentistry, imaging and Image analysis
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Oral Diagnosis and Treatment Planning
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Dental Prosthetics and Restorative dentistry
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Dental Education and Training
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Dental Ethics, policy development and jurisprudence
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Clinical trials, and medico-legal issues.
In short, we are happy to publish, after peer review, all materials dealing with AI and dentistry, providing cutting edge perspectives for clinicians, academics, students and scientists involved in the business of dental practice. It is hoped this section will complement other four core domains in dentistry we currently cover (viz practice-related research, international public health, interprofessional education and science and technology in dentistry) and deliver trusted high quality evidence and educational material to readers with the aim of improving dentalcare for patients worldwide.
We are beginning this journey with the awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of AI that are hotly debated the world over. As mentioned, one of the earliest examples of the power of AI in health care research was the realisation that their superior proficiency in crafting research and review articles exceeded those of scientists. This particular issue has been tackled head on by many including Elsevier, which publishes IDJ, with a set of guidelines on the use of AI in crafting the submitted manuscripts. IDJ therefore explicitly welcomes the use of AI in manuscript writing but with the following proviso ‘authors are allowed to use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process before submission, but only to improve the language and readability of their paper and with the appropriate disclosure, as per our instructions in Elsevier's Guide for Authors’.3
The proficiency of AI however extends far beyond text/s, and embraces images, video, sound, and molecular constructs and such like. In particular, the precise applications of AI in dentistry are many and varied, and includes.5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
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Accurate and timely disease diagnosis through AI assisted tools
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Treatment planning including precision preoperative surgical planning
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Empowering surgical Progress through AI powered robotic surgery
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Post-Surgical care and recovery
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AI powered image analysis and location of pathologic `hot spots`
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Personalised treatment recommendations
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Smart appointment scheduling for surgeries through chat bots
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Elevating patient experience and enhancing accessibility
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Enhancing dental pedagogy by fostering new teaching tools
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Myriad applications in Dental research and discovery
We are unable to describe in this editorial the role and the power of each of these entities in generating superior, hitherto fore unrealised oral and dental care for patients. Yet, it is clear that AI holds immense potential in redefining dentistry, transcending traditional borders, and ushering in a new era of innovation and reform. Our intentions are to bring various articles and reviews related to the foregoing features in future issues that permit easy comprehension of this rather complex and novel domain, and ultimately create synergies that are beneficial both for the practitioner and the patient. Do enjoy your forward looking features of the journal, now expanded to include a much larger of spectrum of articles than ever!
References
- 1.“The A to Z of Artificial Intelligence”. Time Magazine. 13 April 2023. Retrieved 6 March 2024.
- 2.Mishra, A. et al. Promptaid: Prompt exploration, perturbation, testing and iteration using visual analytics for large language models. arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.01964 (2023).
- 3.The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the journal editorial process, https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/publishing-ethics (2024).
- 4.Acosta J.N., Falcone G.J., Rajpurkar P., Topol E.J. Multimodal biomedical AI. Nature Medicine. 2022;28:1773–1784. doi: 10.1038/s41591-022-01981-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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- 6.Elmakaty I., Elmarasi M., Amarah A., Abdo R., Malki M.I. Accuracy of artificial intelligence-assisted detection of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Crit Rev Oncol Hematol. 2022;178 doi: 10.1016/j.critrevonc.2022.103777. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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- 8.Altalhi A.M., et al. The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Dental Implantology: A Narrative Review. Cureus. 2023;15:e47941. doi: 10.7759/cureus.47941. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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