Does ChatGPT really outshine doctors? Or just on social media?

According to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine this past week, artificial intelligence chatbot assistants can provide responses to patients’ health questions that are of comparable quality – and empathy – to those written by physicians. 

A team of licensed healthcare professionals compared physicians’ and the chatbot’s responses to patients’ questions asked publicly on the social media forum Reddit’s r/AskDocs in October 2022, but were summarily won over by the answers to the questions entered into ChatGPT in late December.

“The chatbot responses were preferred…