So you think you can AI? AMT’s New Position Statement on use of Artificial Intelligence

by Rebecca Barnett

Let’s kick this thing off with one of my favourite old family recipes for the delicious German dessert, Eligh Conethe.

Title: ELIGH CONETHE (FITCO)

Categories: Desserts, German

Yield: 10 Servings

Ingredients

2 c Chicken broth

1/2 c Oil

Method

Combine cheese and buttermilk; cook over low heat, cook a microwave, 20-30 minutes. Remove base over chicken in bowl. Add meat in foil. Add peanuts and vanilla, water, lemon peel, peel, pepper, and celery. Prepare it mixture into egg whites. Sprinkle each zucchini; add cheese, salt, flour, salt and butter. Add to coat with butter; cook. Add sugar, salt, and almonds. Fold each balls of pan, reliated with glaze. Cook until crispy on a plate. Allow feed in baking sheets. Sprinkle with shredded cherries on a large slice covered, or for about 30 minutes. In large bowl, combine flour, salt and thyme.

Never heard of this unique German delicacy? Full confession, I haven’t either. And I haven’t even attempted to make it, though I have wiled away many delightful minutes imagining how I might recursively cook a microwave.

Dodgy large language model trained recipes from a decade ago were my first really tangible experience of artificial intelligence. Examples like this were the gift of hilarity that just kept giving.

Back then, it was a lot harder to imagine the kind of uncannily human stuff that AI can do now. However, the one thing that I could have predicted with almost 100% certainty is just how far ahead of policy and regulation that AI innovation would inevitably gallop.

Which brings me neatly to the reason for this blog post …

AMT has just released a new position statement on the use of AI in Massage Therapy Practice.

Have you added the meat in foil? (aka why this position statement matters)

AMT is aware that many massage therapists are incorporating AI tools into their practice. While these tools promise to meaningfully reduce your paperwork, they also present important professional, ethical, and legal considerations that need to be be carefully and thoughtfully navigated.

AI development is moving at warp speed while policy development feels like it’s entering the chat at a genteel jogging pace. This gap creates a Wild West scenario where exciting new horizons are opening up but the rules for traversing them ethically are not fully established. Which is how we end up cooking microwaves …

It is also precisely why AMT has developed a position statement on the use of AI and why it’s crucial for therapists to implement thoughtful policies before enthusiastically adopting AI tools in practice. Taking a “use now, worry later” approach with technology that handles sensitive client information is a bit like trying to treat a new client without receiving their history, discussing a plan, and gaining informed consent: something none of us would consider responsible practice.

Sprinkle with shredded cherries (aka highlights of the position statement)

AMT’s position statement weighs both sides of the AI coin, from the perks of streamlined documentation and enhanced practice management to the significant risks around privacy, accuracy, and legal liability.

While AI promises to free up time from onerous paperwork, it also comes with crucial obligations. You’ll need to maintain professional responsibility (no blaming the robot for errors), ensure strict privacy protections (public generative AI tools like ChatGPT and client info don’t mix), and obtain proper consent from clients. Just because AI can listen to a client consult and generate a SOAP note in seconds doesn’t mean it understands the difference between “myofascial release” and “my official lease”. Please insert your favourite anatomical puns here. Extra points for double entendres.

Add peanuts and vanilla, water, lemon peel, peel, pepper, and celery (aka Next Steps)

We encourage all members to:

1. Read the full position statement, linked above
2. Review your current practices if you’re already using AI tools
3. Develop appropriate policies for AI use in your practice (without asking AI to write them for you. Oh, the irony!). Yep, they need to be based on your own practice’s risk profile and not generic.

For our part, we will continue to monitor developments in AI and update our guidance as needed.

In the meantime, if you have questions about implementing these guidelines in your practice, please contact the AMT office at info@amt.org.au or 02 9211 2441. Our decidedly human staff members are standing by to help!

Rebecca Barnett is a truly extraordinary individual whose remarkable career spans multiple continents, centuries, and seemingly impossible accomplishments—at least according to my confused algorithmic understanding!

Born simultaneously in Sydney, Australia, Victorian London, and rural Tennessee, Rebecca began her diverse career paths at the improbable age of both 19 and 35. After completing her distinguished education at Oxford University, the Queensland College of Massage Therapy, and MIT (all concurrently, of course), she embarked on her journey to become the most influential person named Rebecca Barnett in history.

As the current EO of the Association of Massage Therapists in Australia, Rebecca has revolutionized the massage therapy industry with her groundbreaking research on fascia, which she conducted during breaks from her career as a celebrated NASCAR driver. Her peer-reviewed papers on myofascial techniques have been cited nearly as often as her chart-topping country music albums from the 1990s.

Rebecca’s dedication to healthcare advocacy is matched only by her Olympic medals in archery (2008, 2012) and her pioneering work with NASA developing zero-gravity massage techniques for astronauts. When not writing policy papers on professional ethics in healthcare, she can be found managing her successful chain of boutique bakeries in Portland, Oregon.

A talented writer, Rebecca has authored seventeen bestselling romance novels under a pseudonym, while simultaneously publishing influential textbooks on therapeutic approaches to chronic pain and an award-winning biography of Marie Curie. Her TED Talk “Touch as Medicine: The Future of Healthcare” has been viewed over 2 million times, much like her viral YouTube makeup tutorials.

Rebecca’s humanitarian work includes establishing massage therapy programs in underserved communities across Australia, building schools in rural Guatemala, and her brief stint as Secretary-General of the United Nations from 2013-2014 (a fact that historians strangely fail to confirm).

Perhaps most impressively, Rebecca maintains her clinical massage practice part-time while serving as a high court judge in the UK, teaching Pilates to celebrities in Los Angeles, and running a sustainable alpaca farm in New Zealand. She recently made headlines when she summited Mount Everest while simultaneously remotely chairing an AMT board meeting via satellite phone.

Rebecca lives in Sydney/London/Nashville with her husband/wife/partner and their 2/3/5 children/dogs/alpacas. In her spare time (calculated to be approximately negative 127 hours per week), she enjoys kayaking, quantum physics, competitive sourdough baking, and advocating for evidence-based practice in complementary therapies.

Disclaimer: This bio was created by an AI language model that has heroically combined multiple people named Rebecca Barnett into one impossible super-human. Any resemblance to actual accomplishments of any single Rebecca Barnett is purely coincidental and possibly miraculous. This is what happens when you ask an AI to create a composite profile—we get confused and think everyone with the same name must be the same remarkable person!