Reimagining AI in Social Work: Practitioner Perspectives on Incorporating Technology in their Practice

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Wassal, Katie, Ashurst, Carolyn, Hron, Jiri, Zilka, Miri
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Wassal, Katie
Ashurst, Carolyn
Hron, Jiri
Zilka, Miri
author_facet Wassal, Katie
Ashurst, Carolyn
Hron, Jiri
Zilka, Miri
contents There has been a surge in the number and type of AI tools being tested and deployed within both national and local government in the UK, including within the social care sector. Given the many ongoing and planned future developments, the time is ripe to review and reflect on the state of AI in social care. We do so by conducting semi-structured interviews with UK-based social work professionals about their experiences and opinions of past and current AI systems. Our aim is to understand what systems would practitioners like to see developed and how. We find that all our interviewees had overwhelmingly negative past experiences of technology in social care, unanimous aversion to algorithmic decision systems in particular, but also strong interest in AI applications that could allow them to spend less time on administrative tasks. In response to our findings, we offer a series of concrete recommendations, which include commitment to participatory design, as well as the necessity of regaining practitioner trust.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_10244
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reimagining AI in Social Work: Practitioner Perspectives on Incorporating Technology in their Practice
Wassal, Katie
Ashurst, Carolyn
Hron, Jiri
Zilka, Miri
Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
There has been a surge in the number and type of AI tools being tested and deployed within both national and local government in the UK, including within the social care sector. Given the many ongoing and planned future developments, the time is ripe to review and reflect on the state of AI in social care. We do so by conducting semi-structured interviews with UK-based social work professionals about their experiences and opinions of past and current AI systems. Our aim is to understand what systems would practitioners like to see developed and how. We find that all our interviewees had overwhelmingly negative past experiences of technology in social care, unanimous aversion to algorithmic decision systems in particular, but also strong interest in AI applications that could allow them to spend less time on administrative tasks. In response to our findings, we offer a series of concrete recommendations, which include commitment to participatory design, as well as the necessity of regaining practitioner trust.
title Reimagining AI in Social Work: Practitioner Perspectives on Incorporating Technology in their Practice
topic Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.10244