A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine has shown that artificial intelligence (AI) assistants such as ChatGPT can outperform physicians when it comes to answering patient questions. The study compared ChatGPT’s responses to questions from real-world health questions to those from physicians and found that a panel of licensed health care professionals preferred ChatGPT’s answers 79% of the time. Furthermore, they reported ChatGPT’s responses to be higher quality and more empathetic.
This significant finding was largely attributed to the accuracy and nuancing of the information given by ChatGPT, as well as its capacity for proper empathy towards questions. The latter was demonstrated to be 9.8 times higher in ChatGPT responses as compared to physician responses.
John W. Ayers from the Qualcomm Institute in the University of California San Diego commented on this advanced AI being used in medicine and its ability to drastically improve patient care: “The opportunities for improving health care with AI are massive” he said. “AI-augmented care is the future of medicine”.
Keep in mind that these findings does not mean that physicians should be replaced but rather that AI models should be integrated in health care systems as a complement to current practitioner practices. As put by Dr. Davey Smith of the UC San Diego Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute, “ChatGPT might be able to pass a medical licensing exam, but directly answering patient questions accurately and empathetically is a different ballgame”
ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot that utilizes natural language processing (NLP) to understand, interpret, and respond to user queries. It is designed to be used across multiple platforms and is claimed to provide human-like conversations with users. It is developed by Microsoft and is expected to be released to Android, iOS and other platforms soon.
Adam Poliak, an assistant professor of Computer Science at Bryn Mawr College, commented that “the ultimate solution is not throwing your doctor out altogether. Instead, a physician harnessing ChatGPT is the answer for better and empathetic care.”
With this new study, it is evident that ChatGPT can prove to be a constructive assistant to real-world medical applications by aiding physicians in responding to patient queries more efficiently, providing more sophisticated responses and showing empathy towards those receiving care.
