AI-generated and doctors' answers to health-related questions

Several studies have investigated how large language models answer health-related questions. In a study from 2023, responses to health-related questions in English generated by the language model GPT-3.5 were perceived as more empathetic and informative than responses from doctors. We wanted to apply the newer language model GPT-4 in Norwegian to investigate how respondents with a healthcare background rated responses to health-related questions from doctors and those generated by the language model.

A total of 192 health-related questions with corresponding answers from doctors were sourced from the website Studenterspør.no. The language model GPT-4 was used to generate a new set of answers to the same questions. Both sets of answers were evaluated by 344 respondents with a background in health care. The respondents, who were blinded to whether the answer was generated by a doctor or the language model, were asked to rate the empathy, quality of information and helpfulness of the answers.

The survey consisted of 344 respondents and 192 questions. The average number of evaluations per answer was 5.7. There was a significant difference between doctors' answers and those generated by GPT-4 in terms of perceived empathy (p < 0.001), quality of information (p < 0.001) and helpfulness (p < 0.001).

The answers generated by GPT-4 were rated as more empathetic, informative and helpful than the answers from doctors. This suggests that AI could serve as an aid to healthcare personnel by drafting good responses to health-related questions.