AI chatbot ChatGPT’s responses to medical queries scored higher ratings compared to human responses, according to a new study. However, researchers raised concerns that the mechanization of such activities could take away the feeling of human support.
The three healthcare professionals preferred the responses of ChatGPT to those of the verified physician 78.6 percent of the time.
ChatGPT responses were rated “good” or “very good” 3.6 times more than the physician’s responses. The chatbot’s responses also received 9.8 times more “empathetic” or “very empathetic” ratings.
Ayers cited a study focused on mental health support that found that AI messages were preferred by people over human responses. “Interestingly, once the messages were disclosed as being written by AI, the support felt by the receiver of these messages disappeared,” he said.
Study Limitations, Risks of Missed Diagnoses With AI
The study’s main limitation is the fact that it used an online forum question-and-answer exchange. Such messages might not reflect typical patient-physician questions, the study admitted.“We only studied responding to questions in isolation, whereas actual physicians may form answers based on established patient-physician relationships.”
“We do not know to what extent clinician responses incorporate this level of personalization, nor have we evaluated the chatbot’s ability to provide similar details extracted from the electronic health record.”
As long as the material fed to ChatGPT was precise and highly detailed, the bot did a “decent job” of highlighting common diagnoses. For almost half the patients, ChatGPT suggested six possible diagnoses. The right diagnoses of the patients were one among these six diagnoses outputted by the bot.
However, “a 50 percent success rate in the context of an emergency room is also not good,” Josh says. In one case, ChatGPT missed diagnosing that a 21-year-old female patient had an ectopic pregnancy, a condition in which the fetus develops in a woman’s fallopian tube rather than the uterus. If diagnosed late, the situation can lead to death.
“My fear is that countless people are already using ChatGPT to medically diagnose themselves rather than see a physician. If my patient in this case had done that, ChatGPT’s response could have killed her,” Josh wrote.