Impact of explainable artificial intelligence assistance on clinical decision-making of novice dental clinicians

OBJECTIVE: Despite artificial intelligence (AI) being used increasingly in healthcare, implementation challenges exist leading to potential biases during the clinical decision process of the practitioner. The interaction of AI with novice clinicians was investigated through an identification task, an important component of diagnosis, in dental radiography. The study evaluated the performance, efficiency, and confidence level of dental students on radiographic identification of furcation involvement (FI), with and without AI assistance. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-two third- and 19 fourth-year dental students (DS3 and DS4, respectively) completed remotely administered surveys to identify FI lesions on a series of dental radiographs. The control group received radiographs without AI assistance while the test group received the same radiographs and AI-labeled radiographs. Data were appropriately analyzed using the Chi-square, Fischer’s exact, analysis of variance, or Kruskal–Wallis tests. RESULTS: Performance between groups with and without AI assistance was not statistically significant except for 1 question where tendency was to err with AI-generated answer (P < .05). The efficiency of task completion and confidence levels was not statistically significant between groups. However, both groups with and without AI assistance believed the use of AI would improve the clinical decision-making. DISCUSSION: Dental students detecting FI in radiographs with AI assistance had a tendency towards over-reliance on AI. CONCLUSION: AI input impacts clinical decision-making, which might be particularly exaggerated in novice clinicians. As it is integrated into routine clinical practice, caution must be taken to prevent overreliance on AI-generated information.