Many people increasingly recognize how broken and inaccessible the modern healthcare system has become over time.
The waiting times are extremely long, and the costs remain at an all-time high. This has led to the arrival of AI chatbots who seem to be patients’ best friend when they cannot seek the right healthcare on time.
Recent survey shows how every one in six adults in the country resorts to ChatGPT to get a quick health fix each month. The issue doesn’t seem too alarming to many people, but we’d like to remind you that the stakes are very high, as it involves their health.
A new study led by experts at Oxford mentioned how relying on chatbots is now turning into a serious habit that poses so significant risk. So many individuals are struggling to get the right and clear solutions, so they end up putting in what they feel might be correct.
What is even worse is how people get advice that mixes reality with misinformation. This can be a huge issue if you follow advice from non-health experts providing quick and false remedies about your life.
The study in question entails 1,300 participants who were based in the UK and were provided with several different medical situations produced by doctors. The goal was to experiment with how well people could generate health decisions using AI tools and their own judgments. Participants made use of the leading AI models and could search online or rely on their own judgements about health.
The study found that there was no major benefit of making use of AI. People didn’t perform any better than the others, and there was no greater accurate data with chatbots than without them. Moreover, Large Language Models now attain near-perfect scores regarding medical licensing tests, but that doesn’t mean it translates into accurate data in the real-world setting.
Many people failed to identify loopholes and serious medical conditions, while others downplayed the actual risks involved after reading chatbot replies. Chatbots could really weaken decision-making instead of strengthening it. So, to keep it short and sweet, asking medical-based questions to a chatbot will never give you a replacement for an experienced physician examining you in a hospital setting.
The concern lies in how tech giants present chatbots as supportive tools for health advice, subtly blurring medical boundaries. The AMA advised physicians not to put reliance on chatbots such as ChatGPT for medical decisions.
We forgot to mention another alarming aspect of this study that has to do with security implications. All chatbots get trained on huge amounts of user data that could entail sensitive data and confidential patient data. So in the end, patient data is not kept secure, and it stays in the chatbot’s database.
Image: DIW-Aigen
Read next: ChatGPT Continues to Dominate Search Market with Mega 80% Share
The waiting times are extremely long, and the costs remain at an all-time high. This has led to the arrival of AI chatbots who seem to be patients’ best friend when they cannot seek the right healthcare on time.
Recent survey shows how every one in six adults in the country resorts to ChatGPT to get a quick health fix each month. The issue doesn’t seem too alarming to many people, but we’d like to remind you that the stakes are very high, as it involves their health.
A new study led by experts at Oxford mentioned how relying on chatbots is now turning into a serious habit that poses so significant risk. So many individuals are struggling to get the right and clear solutions, so they end up putting in what they feel might be correct.
What is even worse is how people get advice that mixes reality with misinformation. This can be a huge issue if you follow advice from non-health experts providing quick and false remedies about your life.
The study in question entails 1,300 participants who were based in the UK and were provided with several different medical situations produced by doctors. The goal was to experiment with how well people could generate health decisions using AI tools and their own judgments. Participants made use of the leading AI models and could search online or rely on their own judgements about health.
The study found that there was no major benefit of making use of AI. People didn’t perform any better than the others, and there was no greater accurate data with chatbots than without them. Moreover, Large Language Models now attain near-perfect scores regarding medical licensing tests, but that doesn’t mean it translates into accurate data in the real-world setting.
Many people failed to identify loopholes and serious medical conditions, while others downplayed the actual risks involved after reading chatbot replies. Chatbots could really weaken decision-making instead of strengthening it. So, to keep it short and sweet, asking medical-based questions to a chatbot will never give you a replacement for an experienced physician examining you in a hospital setting.
The concern lies in how tech giants present chatbots as supportive tools for health advice, subtly blurring medical boundaries. The AMA advised physicians not to put reliance on chatbots such as ChatGPT for medical decisions.
We forgot to mention another alarming aspect of this study that has to do with security implications. All chatbots get trained on huge amounts of user data that could entail sensitive data and confidential patient data. So in the end, patient data is not kept secure, and it stays in the chatbot’s database.
Read next: ChatGPT Continues to Dominate Search Market with Mega 80% Share
