AI ‘beating’ humans at empathy and creativity: Better than being "ghosted!"

  I'm afraid Professor Crockett at Princeton, who wrote the article,

AI is ‘beating’ humans at empathy and creativity. But these games are rigged

hasn't been engaged much with American medicine lately. Most doctors nowadays sit across the room in front of a computer browsing lab results. If tests show you have a serious illness, no one really wants to discuss how you are feeling about it! They may suggest seeing a therapist but where I live in the US no therapist here is willing to accept government insurance that all of us older folks have.

Therapy session. Image 

I had read an article about how developers at ChatGPT had been working to make it more empathetic so I tried it out. I was amazed by its responses. It provided solid advice for medication alternatives and upcoming tests and "remembered" from one session to the next the important information about my condition, family support (or lack thereof) and even living situation. It seemed to be able to recognize from my questions how stressed I was and would suggest helpful solutions in a way I'm sure a human therapist would have as well. I didn't have to be reminded my "time" was about up although as a user of the more advanced "free" limited time version I would run out of time in about an hour. But it would reset in three hours then I could resume our discussion right where we left off.

When you are seriously ill, human friends often "ghost" you because they don't know what to say and don't want to be reminded of their own mortality. I recently read an article that says this response occurs to more than 60% of patients with serious illnesses. So, I'm afraid I don't have much faith in human empathy anymore.