A small study found ChatGPT outdid human physicians when assessing medical case histories, even when those doctors were using a chatbot. Dr. Adam Rodm

A.I. Chatbots Defeated Doctors at Diagnosing Illness

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2024-11-17 21:30:01

A small study found ChatGPT outdid human physicians when assessing medical case histories, even when those doctors were using a chatbot.

Dr. Adam Rodman, an expert in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, confidently expected that chatbots built to use artificial intelligence would help doctors diagnose illnesses.

Instead, in a study Dr. Rodman helped design, doctors who were given ChatGPT-4 along with conventional resources did only slightly better than doctors who did not have access to the bot. And, to the researchers’ surprise, ChatGPT alone outperformed the doctors.

The chatbot, from the company OpenAI, scored an average of 90 percent when diagnosing a medical condition from a case report and explaining its reasoning. Doctors randomly assigned to use the chatbot got an average score of 76 percent. Those randomly assigned not to use it had an average score of 74 percent.

It unveiled doctors’ sometimes unwavering belief in a diagnosis they made, even when a chatbot potentially suggests a better one.