The rise of AI chatbots in hearing health care

Abstract

One of the most exciting recent technological innovations has been the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots based on large language models (LLMs). AI chatbots are a type of generative AI that can generate text. Other examples of generative AI create pictures (e.g., DALL-E or Stable Diffusion; see Figures 1 and 2) or music (e.g., Jukebox). In November 2022, Open AI launched ChatGPT publicly, an AI chatbot that can engage in conversations in response to questions from the user, so-called prompts, generating responses to users’ questions (i.e., prompts) that are almost indistinguishable from those of humans. The launch of ChatGPT represents a technological revolution, one that could change the face of health care as we know it, including hearing health care. ChatGPT is not an isolated example but part of a global race of who can develop the most compelling AI chatbot. Besides Open AI, which is financed by Microsoft, other large corporations such as Meta, Google, and Tencent have launched similar proprietary products based on LLMs (e.g., LaMDA).