How Does Comparison With Artificial Intelligence Shed Light on the Way Clinicians Reason? A Cross-Talk Perspective

Abstract

In order to create a dynamic for the psychiatry of the future, bringing together digital technology and clinical practice, we propose in this paper a cross-teaching translational roadmap comparing clinical reasoning with computational reasoning. Based on the relevant literature on clinical ways of thinking, we differentiate the process of clinical judgment into four main stages: collection of variables, theoretical background, construction of the model, and use of the model. We detail, for each step, parallels between: i) clinical reasoning; ii) the ML engineer methodology to build a ML model; iii) and the ML model itself. Such analysis supports the understanding of the empirical practice of each of the disciplines (psychiatry and ML engineering). Thus, ML does not only bring methods to the clinician, but also supports educational issues for clinical practice. Psychiatry can rely on developments in ML reasoning to shed light on its own practice in a clever way. In return, this analysis highlights the importance of subjectivity of the ML engineers and their methodologies.