Matthew DeCamp, MD, PhD, and colleagues are shining a light on artificial intelligence’s role — and appearance — in health care.  “Sometimes overlooked is what a chatbot looks like – its avatar,” the researchers write in a new paper published in Annals of Internal Medicine. “Current chatbot avatars vary from faceless health system logos to cartoon characters or human-like caricatures. Chatbots could one day be digitized versions of a patient’s physician, with that physician’s likeness and voice. Far from an innocuous design decision, chatbot avatars raise novel ethical questions about nudging and bias.”

The paper, titled “More than just a pretty face? Nudging and bias in chatbots”, challenges researchers and health care professionals to closely examine chatbots through a health equity lens and investigate whether the technology truly improves patient outcomes.  Read article>>