Comparison of the Performance of ChatGPT, Claude and Bard in Support of Myopia Prevention and Control

Chatbots, which are based on large language models, are increasingly being used in public health. However, the effectiveness of chatbot responses has been debated, and their performance in myopia prevention and control has not been fully explored. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of three well-known chatbots-ChatGPT, Claude, and Bard-in responding to public health questions about myopia.

Nineteen public health questions about myopia (including three topics of policy, basics and measures) were responded individually by three chatbots. After shuffling the order, each chatbot response was independently rated by 4 raters for comprehensiveness, accuracy and relevance.

The study's questions have undergone reliable testing. There was a significant difference among the word count responses of all 3 chatbots. From most to least, the order was ChatGPT, Bard, and Claude. All 3 chatbots had a composite score above 4 out of 5. ChatGPT scored the highest in all aspects of the assessment. However, all chatbots exhibit shortcomings, such as giving fabricated responses.

Chatbots have shown great potential in public health, with ChatGPT being the best. The future use of chatbots as a public health tool will require rapid development of standards for their use and monitoring, as well as continued research, evaluation and improvement of chatbots.