Report from OpenAI Claims ChatGPT Is Becoming an Important Complement to U.S. Healthcare

OpenAI released a report about healthcare data taken from anonymous chatbot conversations. The title could double as one of those frustrating single-sentence short stories: “AI as a healthcare aide: How Americans are navigating the system with ChatGPIT.”

According to the report, OpenAI’s Hallucinations app – a product psychologists claim has the potential to exacerbate or otherwise mishandle mental health symptoms – is being used by Americans in the following ways:

• In the approximately 2 million messages each week, people try to deal with Medicare pricing, claims (potentially both the patient side and the insurance company side), insurance planning, billing, eligibility, coverage, and other stressful-sounding issues related to private health insurance.
• 600,000 health care messages are sent every week from rural areas and other health care deserts.
• The report notes that seven out of ten health-related queries come at a time when clinics are typically closed, “underscoring how people are seeking actionable information when facilities are closed” (and this could easily be true, but it could also underline how often hypochondriacs and other people with anxiety disorders turn to ChatGPT when they’re worried late at night).

The report also notes that OpenAI itself conducted a survey (the methodology of which was not mentioned) that found that three in five US adults self-reported using one of these AI tools in some way in the past three months.

Incidentally, a Gallup report last November found that 30% of Americans answered “yes” to the question, “Has there been a time in the past 12 months when […] You decided not to have a medical procedure, laboratory test or other evaluation recommended by a doctor because you didn’t have enough money to pay for it?

The OpenAI report highlights the story of a busy rural doctor who uses OpenAI models to “draft visit notes within the clinical workflow, as an AI writer.” It is said that AI models “contribute in the near term by helping people
Deprived areas interpret information, prepare for care, and bridge gaps in access, while helping scarce physicians reclaim time and reduce burnout.

I’m not sure which idea is blunter: more and more people are using chatbots as doctors because they can’t get proper care, or people are turning to doctors, and gaining experience through AI models.