The notion that people will regularly use computers to diagnose their own illnesses has been discussed for decades. Of course, millions of people try to do that today, consulting Dr. Google, though often with little success. Given the low quality of many online health sources, such searches may even be harmful. Some governments have even launched “Don’t Google It” campaigns to urge people not to use the internet for health concerns.
But the internet may suddenly become a lot more helpful for people who want to determine what is wrong with them. ChatGPT, a new artificial intelligence chatbot, has the potential to be a game-changer with medical diagnosis.
ChatGPT is not the first innovation in this space. Over the last decade, symptom checkers have emerged on websites and in smartphone apps to aid people searching for health information. Symptom checkers serve two main functions: they facilitate self-diagnosis and assist with self-triage. They typically provide the user with a list of potential diagnoses and a recommendation of how quickly they should seek care, like see a doctor right now vs. you can treat this at home.
Our team once tested the performance of 23 symptom checkers using 45 clinical vignettes across a range of clinical severity. The results raised substantial concerns. On average, symptom checkers listed the correct diagnosis within the top three options just 51% of the time and advised seeking care two-thirds of the time.
When the same vignettes were given to physicians, they — reassuringly — did much better and were much more likely to list the correct diagnosis within the top three options (84%). Though physicians were better than symptom checkers, consistent with prior research, misdiagnosis was still common.
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