Trust Me, I'm a Chatbot: How Artificial Intelligence in Health Care Fails the Turing Test

Abstract

Over the next decade, one issue which will dominate sociotechnical studies in health informatics is the extent to which the promise of artificial intelligence in health care will be realized, along with the social and ethical issues which accompany it. A useful thought experiment is the application of the Turing test to user-facing artificial intelligence systems in health care (such as chatbots or conversational agents). In this paper I argue that many medical decisions require value judgements and the doctor-patient relationship requires empathy and understanding to arrive at a shared decision, often handling large areas of uncertainty and balancing competing risks. Arguably, medicine requires wisdom more than intelligence, artificial or otherwise. Artificial intelligence therefore needs to supplement rather than replace medical professionals, and identifying the complementary positioning of artificial intelligence in medical consultation is a key challenge for the future. In health care, artificial intelligence needs to pass the implementation game, not the imitation game.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; chatbots; conversational agents; digital health; ehealth; machine learning; medical informatics.