New Delhi, Oct 11
Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered search engines and chatbots may not always provide accurate and safe information on drugs, and patients shouldn’t rely on these, warned a study on Friday.
Researchers from Belgium and Germany conducted the study after finding many answers were wrong or potentially harmful.
In the paper, published in the journal BMJ Quality and Safety, they said that the complexity of the answers provided by the AI chatbot may be difficult to understand and might require degree-level education.
With the introduction of AI-powered chatbots search engines in 2023 underwent a significant shift thanks. The renewed versions offered enhanced search results, comprehensive answers, and a new type of interactive experience.
While the chatbots -- trained on extensive datasets from the entire internet -- can answer any healthcare-related queries, they are also capable of generating disinformation and nonsensical or harmful content, said the team from the Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg in Germany.
“In this cross-sectional study, we observed that search engines with an AI-powered chatbot produced overall complete and accurate answers to patient questions,” they write.
“However, chatbot answers were largely difficult to read and answers repeatedly lacked information or showed inaccuracies, possibly threatening patient and medication safety,” they add.
For the study, the researchers explored the readability, completeness, and accuracy of chatbot answers for queries on the top 50 most frequently prescribed drugs in the US in 2020. They used Bing copilot, a search engine with AI-powered chatbot features.