THE ABILITY OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CHATBOTS ChatGPT AND GOOGLE BARD TO ACCURATELY CONVEY PREOPERATIVE INFORMATION FOR PATIENTS UNDERGOING OPHTHALMIC SURGERIES

Introduction: To determine whether the two popular artificial intelligence chatbots, ChatGPT and Bard, can provide high-quality information concerning procedure description, risks, benefits, and alternatives of various ophthalmic surgeries. Methods: ChatGPT and Bard were prompted with questions pertaining to the description, potential risks, benefits, alternatives, and implications of not proceeding with various surgeries in different subspecialties of ophthalmology. Six common ophthalmic procedures were included in the authors' analysis. Two comprehensive ophthalmologists and one subspecialist graded each response independently using a 5-point Likert scale. Results: Likert grading for accuracy was significantly higher for ChatGPT in comparison with Bard (4.5 +/- 0.6 vs. 3.8 +/- 0.8, P < 0.0001). Generally, ChatGPT performed better than Bard even when questions were stratified by the type of ophthalmic surgery. There was no significant difference between ChatGPT and Bard for response length (2,104.7 +/- 271.4 characters vs. 2,441.0 +/- 633.9 characters, P = 0.12). ChatGPT responded significantly slower than Bard (46.0 +/- 3.0 vs. 6.6 +/- 1.2 seconds, P < 0.0001). Conclusion: Both ChatGPT and Bard may offer accessible and high-quality information relevant to the informed consent process for various ophthalmic procedures. Nonetheless, both artificial intelligence chatbots overlooked the probability of adverse events, hence limiting their potential and introducing patients to information that may be difficult to interpret.