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BackgroundLaypeople have easy access to health information through large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, and search engines, such as Google. Search engines transformed health information access, and LLMs offer a new avenue for answering laypeople’s questions. ObjectiveWe aimed to compare the frequency of use and attitudes toward LLMs and search engines as well as their comparative relevance, usefulness, ease of use, and trustworthiness in responding to health queries. MethodsWe conducted a screening survey to compare the demographics of LLM users and nonusers seeking health information, analyzing results with logistic regression. LLM users from the screening survey were invited to a follow-up survey to report the types of health information they sought. We compared the frequency of use of LLMs and search engines using ANOVA and Tukey post hoc tests. Lastly, paired-sample Wilcoxon tests compared LLMs and search engines on perceived usefulness, ease of use, trustworthiness, feelings, bias, and anthropomorphism. ResultsIn total, 2002 US participants recruited on Prolific participated in the screening survey about the use of LLMs and search engines. Of them, 52% (n=1045) of the participants were female, with a mean age of 39 (SD 13) years. Participants were 9.7% (n=194) Asian, 12.1% (n=242) Black, 73.3% (n=1467) White, 1.1% (n=22) Hispanic, and 3.8% (n=77) were of other races and ethnicities. Further, 1913 (95.6%) used search engines to look up health queries versus 642 (32.6%) for LLMs. Men had higher odds (odds ratio [OR] 1.63, 95% CI 1.34-1.99; P<.001) of using LLMs for health questions than women. Black (OR 1.90, 95% CI 1.42-2.54; P<.001) and Asian (OR 1.66, 95% CI 1.19-2.30; P<.01) individuals had higher odds than White individuals. Those with excellent perceived health (OR 1.46, 95% CI 1.1-1.93; P=.01) were more likely to use LLMs than those with good health. Higher technical proficiency increased the likelihood of LLM use (OR 1.26, 95% CI 1.14-1.39; P<.001). In a follow-up survey of 281 LLM users for health, most participants used search engines first (n=174, 62%) to answer health questions, but the second most common first source consulted was LLMs (n=39, 14%). LLMs were perceived as less useful (P<.01) and less relevant (P=.07), but elicited fewer negative feelings (P<.001), appeared more human (LLM: n=160, vs search: n=32), and were seen as less biased (P<.001). Trust (P=.56) and ease of use (P=.27) showed no differences. ConclusionsSearch engines are the primary source of health information; yet, positive perceptions of LLMs suggest growing use. Future work could explore whether LLM trust and usefulness are enhanced by supplementing answers with external references and limiting persuasive language to curb overreliance. Collaboration with health organizations can help improve the quality of LLMs’ health output.
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Large Language Models Help Humans Verify Truthfulness -- Except When They Are Convincingly Wrong
Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used for accessing information on the web. Their truthfulness and factuality are thus of great interest. To help users make the right decisions about the information they get, LLMs should not only provide information but also help users fact-check it. Our experiments with 80 crowdworkers compare language models with search engines (information retrieval systems) at facilitating fact-checking. We prompt LLMs to validate a given claim and provide corresponding explanations. Users reading LLM explanations are significantly more efficient than those using search engines while achieving similar accuracy. However, they over-rely on the LLMs when the explanation is wrong. To reduce over-reliance on LLMs, we ask LLMs to provide contrastive information - explain both why the claim is true and false, and then we present both sides of the explanation to users. This contrastive explanation mitigates users' over-reliance on LLMs, but cannot significantly outperform search engines. Further, showing both search engine results and LLM explanations offers no complementary benefits compared to search engines alone. Taken together, our study highlights that natural language explanations by LLMs may not be a reliable replacement for reading the retrieved passages, especially in high-stakes settings where over-relying on wrong AI explanations could lead to critical consequences.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2229885
- PAR ID:
- 10522356
- Publisher / Repository:
- 2024 Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL 2024)
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Mexico City, Mexico
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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