O16 Can sexual health clinicians be replaced by robots? Utility of artificial intelligence platforms to give sexual health advice

Introduction The internet is now the go-to resource for patients for health advice, but this traditionally relies on search engines or pre-populated information on websites. Here we investigate the utility of Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms for answering sexual health related queries. Methods We put 5 detailed scenario-based queries to an AI platform (GPT-4), around PrEP, STIs and contraception. We asked the same queries to a variety of sexual health clinical staff. A blind comparison was made to determine if the AI answers were distinguishable from human answers, and if the responses were safe and appropriate. The answers were rated from best to worst based on accuracy, thoroughness and readability. Results In each case, the assessor was able to identify the AI-generated answer. The AI responses were generally clinically safe, although one complex contraception response did not correlate to UK guidance (but signposted to specialist advice). The AI responses in 3 PrEP/STI scenarios ranked higher as they were generally more detailed and/or included more health promotion advice than the human answers. In the 2 contraception scenarios the human answers ranked better than AI as the AI answers lacked nuance or contained small errors. The clinician’s answers overall were generally shorter and in some cases also contained incorrect information. AI generated the answers in less than a minute. Clinical staff took on average 7 mins/answer. Discussion The AI platform generally provided accurate and safe answers rapidly. Clinical staff had time to consider and research their answers, so took longer to generate them. Incorporation of AI into patient-facing websites giving sexual health advice may be appropriate, particularly where challenges around access to clinicians exist. AI cannot take the place of a clinical discussion with an experienced professional, but could be used as a supportive tool for these discussion and/or offer advice out-of-hours.