back to article Google AI chatbot more empathetic than real doctors in tests

An AI chatbot was better at diagnosing medical ailments and communicating results than human physicians in text-based conversations, a research paper from Google claims. The system, named Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer (AMIE), is a large language model trained to collect medical information and conduct clinical …

  1. Omnipresent Silver badge

    Tell it to the young ones.

    Read a rage bait article about how young people are turning to AI for psychological help on the bbc the other day. Can you imagine? The world being so unreal that you turn to a hallucinating machine for companionship and advice?

    The bros will come to resent the day they thought this was a good idea. KARMA is a bootchie. The machine can tell your children anything it wants. Unfortunately, kids don't realize the interwebs is all a lie propagated by eeeeeevilllllllllll....

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Terminator

      Re: Tell it to the young ones.

      If the choice is between a relatively benign chatbot and whatever entity originated the post above, I might also prefer the chatbot.

  2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

    To be fair, "being more empathetic than the average doctor" is not a terribly high bar to clear. Sure, there are a few doctors capable of interacting with humans, but the system is designed to attract and train the obsessively power and status hungry and does just that.

    When I rule the world, medical school will only be open to people who have spent five years working as nurses.

    1. LybsterRoy Silver badge

      I would guess that you have spent little time in hospital, and probably don't get to your local surgery much either.

      You may wish to consider the trade off between "obsessively power and status hungry " and discussing the latest episode of Corrie (which you obviously need a degree for).

  3. Bebu
    Windows

    Makes sense

    "When I rule the world, medical school will only be open to people who have spent five years working as nurses."

    If medicos were recruited from the same cohort as nurses and followed the same career trajectory with respect to status and pay you would probably get the same effect.

    It seemed insane to me when in this part of the world we moved from an undergraduate entry medical degree to a postgraduate entry degree (a la US) and restricting entry (in both cases) less than the top 5% of academic performers.

    Think recruiting Dr Finlay's Casebook* from Big Bang Theory.

    The completely predictable outcome is that most medical students (and graduates) want to be specialists to enhance their status or prestige and have as little to do with patients as possible. Pathologist the extreme case I suppose. :)

    *If you are in the US yours is a lost cause.

    1. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: Makes sense

      The big problem is that most people view being a doctor as really really hard. When in reality most of the medical profession is about absorbing massive amounts of information and being able to recall the right bits of it at the right time. That's not a particularly hard skill but one that is also not necessarily selected for by a graduate degree. There's probably a lot of people who would be excellent doctors who never get a chance, and lots of people being doctors who would be better off in a different profession.

      (Don't get me wrong though, once you get past the general "becoming a doctor" part and go into any sort of specialization, more skills come into it. Surgeons are absolutely amazing on manual dexterity and control for instance.)

  4. xyz Silver badge

    I went to a doctor once...

    He said I was ill.

    I didn't go back as he was too negative.

  5. Securitymoose
    Thumb Up

    To be honest, I'd prefer a properly programmed AI chat-bot for first medical contact.

    Rather than waiting for an appointment 2-4 weeks away (in the UK specifically), an initial chat with a machine might diagnose symptoms more accurately. If there was anything serious discovered, the system could quickly escalate to a human medical specialist in the right area. Getting rid of those initial contact delays would drastically improve the state of medical care worldwide.

    1. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: To be honest, I'd prefer a properly programmed AI chat-bot for first medical contact.

      That's generally what the triage nurse you get on the phone is for when you call your GP (or a specialist).

      1. Dr. G. Freeman

        Re: To be honest, I'd prefer a properly programmed AI chat-bot for first medical contact.

        triage nurse ? More likely the receptionist.

        Takes seven years to be a GP, takes five minutes for the receptionist to think they're one.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: To be honest, I'd prefer a properly programmed AI chat-bot for first medical contact.

      I'm sure I heard this argument before, when they pushed hard to introduce 'phone-in appointments' and whatever other services that would save (the budget) money and make getting medical help faster. I'm sure the budget saved the money, as to getting medical help faster, we're - it seems - in deeper shit that we were a few years ago. Here comes the next golden bullet to solve all our budget ailments...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Were the Doctors working for a National Health Service

    or a Private Wallet Exfiltration organisation?

  7. EricB123 Silver badge

    It Won't Help

    The insurance company will reject the AI's treatment plan just like they already do from real human doctors.

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