How Do Clinicians Remain Relevant in the Age of AI?

Throughout human evolution, few events have proven to be so transformative that they changed our very existence. Taming fire brought warmth in the cold and lit up the night. The invention of the wheel allowed us to transport things virtually unmovable before. The internet enabled us to connect with each other and access vast repositories of information at the click of a button. The industrial revolution expanded our ability to build and produce on a scale unimaginable before. It also made a lot of manual labor obsolete. Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to bring about a paradigm shift as profound as or perhaps more profound than the industrial revolution, because—as many fear—it may replace humans in many work settings. While we do not and cannot know what the future holds, we expect that the field of communication sciences and disorders will still need a human agent in the form of a speech-language pathologist and an audiologist. The real question is not whether AI and automation will change clinical work. It has. The question is: what value do humans bring to clinical work? Tools like acoustic analyses combined with human intuition and innovation maintain the relevance of a natural anthropoid by integrating speech analysis with one’s intuition and lived experiences. Acoustic analysis of speech is a suitable proving ground for human-machine interaction in clinical services because substantial progress has been made in the use of AI in analyzing healthy and disordered speech, and because acoustic analysis is readily available to clinicians through free software. Of the various technologies available for speech analysis, acoustics is perhaps the most economical and the most applicable for speakers who differ in age, gender, dialect, and speech proficiency.

 

At the present time, AI will augment and enhance but not replace humans. AI can do some things very well, often better than humans, especially when relevant databases are adequate and procedures are well-defined and thoroughly tested. However, human communication presents special challenges because it is multifaceted, dynamic, creative, and context-dependent. Human clinicians play critical roles to monitor and evaluate the performance of AI in clinical and communicative settings. Human oversight and intervention are needed to ensure accuracy while maintaining ethical standards, expressing empathy and support, and adapting to changes in client status within and across clinical sessions. Titze (2025) warns that excessive reliance on AI may hinder scientific revolutions. Similarly, excessive reliance on AI in clinical services may interfere with human intuition and creativity that lead to innovations and precision in assessment and treatment. Human clinicians possess powers of observation (visual and auditory) attuned to clients’ behavior, while keeping in mind clients’ history, goals, and motivation. Nonetheless, tools such as AI and acoustic analyses of speech hold the promise of enhancing the work of speech-language pathologists and audiologists.

In our book Acoustic Methods for Speech Science, our goal is to help our readers understand theoretical and practical aspects of speech and its analyses from an acoustic perspective. When explanation is coupled with hands-on practice, learning becomes contextualized and transferable to clinical practice. Unfortunately, practicing speech-language pathologists and audiologists may not see the advantage of acoustic analyses when materials they read seem to be obscure, incomprehensible, and without clear practical implications or solutions. We are convinced that if accessible theoretical explanations are presented with practical examples and illustrations, professionals in the fields of communication sciences and disorders, linguistics, second language instruction, and others would explore ways to incorporate acoustic analyses into their practice. For example, if a clinician wanted to know whether their perception could be verified using another, perhaps more objective, method, acoustic analyses of speech may prove to be very useful. Conversely, if some automated analysis contradicts how humans interpret a speech pattern, the algorithm—be it as objective as it may—could be wrong. In the hands of a trained human clinician, tools such as acoustic analyses may “come alive,” so the real value is not how one can supersede the other, rather, how clinicians can wield the tools at their disposal to maximize their advantages for the clients. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy’s famous quote from his inaugural address on January 20, 1961: “Ask not what the tools can do for you, ask what you and the tools together can do to benefit your client.”

As with any transformation, the transition to clinical and instructional work that is more reliant on automation and AI may instill apprehension in speech-language pathologists, audiologists, linguists, and language instructors. Will there be a need for human agents in these fields? Yes! Our book and materials are a testament to the need for a human being in fields where human speech and communicative interactions are assessed and analyzed for the benefit of other human beings. Times of change are also times of opportunity, and professionals dealing with human communication and its disorders have a choice: They can either embrace technologies that will help them be more informed and effective clinicians or teachers, or they can join the legendary Ned Ludd in an effort to try to dismantle and destroy technological advances. One must ask the question, though, did Luddites accomplish the goal of halting the industrial revolution? Or would it be wiser to learn how to use novel technologies to improve clinical practice and teaching? After all, who would be helped by incorporating technological advances into clinical practice and teaching? Perhaps if the answer were that the ultimate beneficiary of using technological advances would be one’s clients and students, it would not be too difficult for clinicians, linguists, and foreign language teachers to embrace the idea of harnessing the power of acoustic analyses of speech along with other technologies for the good of humankind.

 

Reference

Titze, I. R. (2025). Excessive use of artificial intelligence may prevent scientific revolutions. Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology, 50(4), 228–231. https://doi.org/10.1080/14015439.2025.2564234