Pharma’s attitudes on AI revealed

A survey by Elsevier has shown that researchers in the pharmaceutical and life sciences sectors consider artificial intelligence (AI) to be positive, with respondents stating that the future impact of the technology will be “transformative or significant.”

The data showed that over 38 percent of those who engaged in the survey have used it professionally. A total of 76 percent anticipate they will use AI within the next two to five years.

Insight from 3,000 researchers and clinicians across 123 countries revealed attitudes towards this emerging technology, with the findings published in a recent report. The survey was part of this wider Elsevier study.

A revolutionary tool in pharma?

Overall, implementing AI was regarded as a positive step. Nearly all respondents (96 percent) predict that this tool will accelerate knowledge discovery and 71 percent say its impact in their area will be “transformative or significant”, according to the data. Furthermore, as for benefits of the technology, respondents thought that it will enable cost savings for businesses (93 percent), increase work quality (87 percent), and free up time to focus on higher value projects (85 percent).

Yet there were several concerns raised about the risks of the technology, particularly around its use or misuse. These include the belief that this tool will be used for misinformation at least to some extent (96 percent), that AI will cause critical errors (84 percent), and that AI will lead to weakened critical thinking (86 percent), the findings showed.

“Researchers in fields from pharmaceuticals to biotechnology to chemicals are clearly telling us they have an appetite for AI to aid their work, but that ethics, transparency and accuracy remain paramount,” commented Mirit Eldor, Managing Director, Life Sciences at Elsevier. “We know from conversations with our customers that trust in data quality and provenance is critical to how they view AI’s ability to augment their R&D approach. This report has highlighted the steps that must be taken to embed confidence in the AI tools of today and tomorrow.”

Trusting AI

With accuracy and transparency essential in these industries, generating greater trust in AI tools is important. A high proportion (91 percent) expect that generative AI (GAI) dependent tools’ results “to be based solely on high-quality trusted sources”. Sixty percent stated that ensuring confidential inputs would raise their trust in the tool.

“The power of AI will be unleashed when organisations are able to integrate reliable scientific data with secure computational ecosystems, to build intelligent and specialist AI applications that solve scientific problems,” Eldor explained.