There’s a deep divide between how patients and doctors view the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Doctors are overwhelmingly in favor of using AI: two-thirds of doctors have already incorporated it into their practice. But patients are concerned about AI’s tendency to make up false information and fear AI use may further reduce an already dismissive and unsympathetic medical interaction to something completely robotic.
This divide exists in other fields too, where corporate executives believe that AI has improved customer service, but actual customers disagree, with 88% preferring human interaction, and almost half say “their biggest frustration has been not being able to reach a human.”
Now, a new study illuminates that divide, demonstrating that patients don’t trust doctors who use AI. They think they’re less empathetic—and less good at their jobs. And given those beliefs, is it any surprise that patients also reported being less likely to make appointments with such doctors?
The study was conducted by Moritz Reis, Florian Reis, and Wilfried Kunde at the University of Wuerzburg and Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany, and was published in JAMA Network Open.