From WordPress to Healthcare: The Surprising Empathy of AI and its Potential to Boost Productivity by 30%

In March, Goldman Sachs analysts estimated that nearly two-thirds of US workers could become more productive using AI. Over the next decade, that AI productivity boost could increase S&P 500 profits by 30% or more, Ben Snider, a senior strategist at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC last week.

WordPress has a new AI plug-in to create and edit text.  Jetpack AI Assistant allows users to summarize a blog post in a headline, adjust the tone of text (users can choose between options including “formal,” “provocative,” and “humorous”), and even generate an entire blog post from a single prompt.

Also getting AI – WebEx.   Cisco has announced new summarization capabilities for the platform by the end of the year.

New customer for AI?   The Defense Department.   Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it would offer US government departments access to its AI models, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4.

One that’s changing its approach – CNET.   After news that the outlet had been using AI to produce articles, the site clarified its policy.   Stories will not be written entirely using an AI tool, and humans will do hands-on reviews and testing of products. CNET will also not publish AI-generated images and videos “as of now.”

And some new data on effectiveness – let’s quote from Insider:

A team of researchers from the University of California in San Diego lurked on r/AskDocs, a Reddit forum where registered, verified healthcare professionals answer people’s medical questions. The researchers selected nearly 200 representative questions on the forum, from the silly-sounding (“Swallowed a toothpick, a friend said I’m going to die”) to the terrifying (“miscarriage one day after normal ultrasound?”). They then fed the questions into the virtual maw of the bot ChatGPT and had a separate group of healthcare experts conduct a blind evaluation of answers from both AI and MDs. 

The results were shocking. For one thing, ChatGPT came out well ahead of the human doctors on usefulness. Almost invariably, the chatbot answers were rated as three or four times as reliable as the ones from the poor wee humans. What’s more, the bots didn’t show any of the distressing tendency to make stuff up that they often have in other circumstances.

But here’s the most striking part: The chatbot answers, on average, were rated seven times as empathetic as the ones from humans. Seven times! They provided just what you want from your doctor: care and an emotional connection. It’s as if the unfeeling android Mr. Data figured out how to convincingly emulate Dr. Crusher’s comforting bedside manner.

 The predictions of productivity can be seen in the effective outcomes.     Medicine is ripe for technology disruption and is good at it too.   Those who test the effectiveness of the technology rather than unthinkingly deploy it will see the best results, and that’s exactly what customers will be looking for.