Most Americans feel "significant discomfort" about the idea of their healthcare provider using artificial intelligence (AI) as part of their medical care, according to a Pew Research poll published Wednesday.

Most Americans feel 'significant discomfort' with AI being used in their own healthcare

As AI technology continues to evolve, there is a growing interest in its potential use in healthcare. Recently, two AI language models passed the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam, which medical students often spend hundreds of hours studying for. But even with this development, experts say the technology is unlikely to replace humans in medical care any time soon.

Still, AI programs could one day advance far enough to be used for wellness checks and other general practitioner tasks. They could also eventually include other data like vocal tone, body language, and facial expressions to determine a patient's condition.

On Wednesday, Pew Research published survey results that measured public views on AI in health and medicine.

For the survey, Pew surveyed 11,004 U.S. adults between Dec. 12-18, 2022. Overall, the survey found that most Americans feel "significant discomfort" about AI being used in their own healthcare. In particular, 60% of U.S. adults said they would feel uncomfortable if their healthcare provider relied on AI to perform tasks like diagnosing disease and recommending treatments.

Meanwhile, just 38% of U.S. adults believe relying on AI in medical care would lead to better health outcomes for patients, while 33% say it would lead to worse outcomes and 27% say it would not have much of an impact.

Concern over the pace of AI adoption in healthcare was widely shared among the public, including among individuals who are the most familiar with AI technologies.

In general, men, younger adults, and individuals with higher levels of education have a more positive outlook about the impact of AI on patient outcomes. 

While Americans anticipate a range of positive and negative effects from the use of AI in health and medicine, the public is generally optimistic about the potential impact AI could have on reducing the number medical errors. 

In particular, 40% of Americans think AI would reduce the number of mistakes made by providers. In addition, among respondents who said racial and ethnic bias is an issue in healthcare, 51% said AI would help address the problem of bias and unfair treatment.

However, 37% of Americans said the use of AI would make the security of patients' health records worse, and 57% believe patients' personal relationships with their provider will deteriorate with the use of AI in health care settings.

When asked whether they would want AI to be used in four specific applications in health and medical care, 65% said they would want AI-based tools to be used for their own skin cancer screening, 40% said they would want AI-driven robots to perform parts of their own surgery, 31% said they would want AI-based recommendations for pain management following surgery, and just 20% said they would want to rely on AI chatbots for mental healthcare.

"Awareness of AI is still developing. So one dynamic here is, the public isn't deeply familiar with all of these technologies. And so when you consider their use in a context that's very personal, something that's kind of high-stakes as your own health, I think that the notion that folks are still getting to know this technology is certainly one dynamic at play," said Alec Tyson, Pew's associate director of research. (Mueller, The Hill, 2/22; Christensen, CNN, 2/22; Tyson et al., Pew Research report, 2/22)