Want a compassionate response from a doctor? You may want to ask ChatGPT instead

If you're consulting a doctor, it's likely that you're concerned about a specific aspect of your health, and you would probably appreciate your doctor's empathy when addressing your worries.

This is where ChatGPT outshines a doctor.

A study published in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal shows that ChatGPT can provide more empathetic and higher-quality answers to patient health-related questions compared to doctors.

Also: AI bots have been acing medical school exams, but should they become your doctor?

The study utilized 195 questions posted by users on Reddit's 'r/AskDocs' thread, with verified physicians providing answers. These same questions were then given to ChatGPT for response.

A team of health professionals compared the responses from both physicians and ChatGPT, evaluating and assigning quality designations to each response.

The results were surprising.

According to the study, out of the 195 questions and responses, the evaluators preferred chatbot responses in 78.6% of the 585 evaluations.

The study discovered that the chatbot's responses were typically longer, higher in quality, and more empathetic than those from the physicians.

In particular, the study found that the physician responses were 41% less empathetic than the chatbot's responses.

The study's results suggest that an AI chatbot could be helpful in assisting physicians in formulating responses to patients' questions.

This solution would benefit both healthcare professionals and patients. Professionals would save time by generating longer, high-quality responses, while patients would receive better responses to alleviate their concerns.