Attitudes and perceptions of dental students towards artificial intelligence

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a burning topic and use of AI in our day-to-day life has increased exponentially. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the attitudes and perceptions of Turkish dental students towards AI and to provide information about their opinions to use of AI in dentistry. A 22-question survey was distributed through Google Forms to all dental students at 9 Turkish dental schools in March 2019. It consisted of various sections aiming to evaluate the dental students' knowledge and attitudes toward AI and possible applications in dentistry. Respondents' anonymity was ensured. A total of 1103 students (650 female, 453 male; mean age was 21.36 ± 1.93 years) responded to the questionnaire for a 21.69% response rate. Of these, about 48.40% had basic knowledge about AI technologies and 10.6% stated that they had no information sources about AI. 85.70% agreed that dentistry would be revolutionized by AI but 28.60% did not agree that AI could replace themselves in the near future. In addition, 74.60% and 79.80% of agreed on topics about AI to be included in undergraduate and postgraduate dental education, respectively. Although participants have insufficient knowledge of AI, they are willing to improve their knowledge in this field. Participants shared an optimistic views and thought that AI will have a positive impact on dental future practice. Follow-up surveys and multinational studies should be conducted to further explore these issues.