Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
School of Communication and Design, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
J Med Internet Res. 2020 Jul 13;22(7):e16649. doi: 10.2196/16649.
High-quality medical resources are in high demand worldwide, and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in medical care may help alleviate the crisis related to this shortage. The development of the medical AI industry depends to a certain extent on whether industry experts have a comprehensive understanding of the public's views on medical AI. Currently, the opinions of the general public on this matter remain unclear.
The purpose of this study is to explore the public perception of AI in medical care through a content analysis of social media data, including specific topics that the public is concerned about; public attitudes toward AI in medical care and the reasons for them; and public opinion on whether AI can replace human doctors.
Through an application programming interface, we collected a data set from the Sina Weibo platform comprising more than 16 million users throughout China by crawling all public posts from January to December 2017. Based on this data set, we identified 2315 posts related to AI in medical care and classified them through content analysis.
Among the 2315 identified posts, we found three types of AI topics discussed on the platform: (1) technology and application (n=987, 42.63%), (2) industry development (n=706, 30.50%), and (3) impact on society (n=622, 26.87%). Out of 956 posts where public attitudes were expressed, 59.4% (n=568), 34.4% (n=329), and 6.2% (n=59) of the posts expressed positive, neutral, and negative attitudes, respectively. The immaturity of AI technology (27/59, 46%) and a distrust of related companies (n=15, 25%) were the two main reasons for the negative attitudes. Across 200 posts that mentioned public attitudes toward replacing human doctors with AI, 47.5% (n=95) and 32.5% (n=65) of the posts expressed that AI would completely or partially replace human doctors, respectively. In comparison, 20.0% (n=40) of the posts expressed that AI would not replace human doctors.
Our findings indicate that people are most concerned about AI technology and applications. Generally, the majority of people held positive attitudes and believed that AI doctors would completely or partially replace human ones. Compared with previous studies on medical doctors, the general public has a more positive attitude toward medical AI. Lack of trust in AI and the absence of the humanistic care factor are essential reasons why some people still have a negative attitude toward medical AI. We suggest that practitioners may need to pay more attention to promoting the credibility of technology companies and meeting patients' emotional needs instead of focusing merely on technical issues.
高质量的医疗资源在全球范围内都有很高的需求，人工智能（AI）在医疗保健中的应用可能有助于缓解与这种短缺相关的危机。医疗 AI 行业的发展在一定程度上取决于行业专家是否全面了解公众对医疗 AI 的看法。目前，公众对此事的意见尚不清楚。
本研究旨在通过对社交媒体数据进行内容分析，探讨公众对医疗 AI 的看法，包括公众关注的具体话题；公众对医疗 AI 的态度及其原因；以及公众对 AI 是否可以替代人类医生的看法。
通过应用编程接口，我们从新浪微博平台上爬取了 2017 年 1 月至 12 月期间来自中国各地的 1600 多万用户的数据集。基于这个数据集，我们通过内容分析确定了 2315 篇与医疗 AI 相关的帖子，并对其进行了分类。
在确定的 2315 篇帖子中，我们发现平台上讨论了三种类型的 AI 话题：（1）技术与应用（n=987，42.63%）、（2）行业发展（n=706，30.50%）和（3）对社会的影响（n=622，26.87%）。在 956 篇表达公众态度的帖子中，有 59.4%（n=568）、34.4%（n=329）和 6.2%（n=59）的帖子分别表达了积极、中立和消极的态度。AI 技术的不成熟（27/59，46%）和对相关公司的不信任（n=15，25%）是持消极态度的两个主要原因。在 200 篇提到公众对用 AI 替代人类医生的态度的帖子中，有 47.5%（n=95）和 32.5%（n=65）的帖子分别表示 AI 将完全或部分替代人类医生。相比之下，20.0%（n=40）的帖子表示 AI 不会替代人类医生。
我们的研究结果表明，人们最关心的是 AI 技术和应用。总的来说，大多数人持积极态度，认为 AI 医生将完全或部分替代人类医生。与以往对医学博士的研究相比，公众对医疗 AI 的态度更为积极。对 AI 的信任缺失和缺乏人文关怀因素是一些人仍然对医疗 AI 持消极态度的重要原因。我们建议从业者可能需要更加关注推广技术公司的可信度和满足患者的情感需求，而不仅仅是关注技术问题。
