Charlotte Blease

You're going to see a doctor who has this expertise.

And that tends to, if you look at the psychology of status, when there's somebody who's more subordinate in a certain context going to speak to somebody who's more, by default, prestigious, people tend to be more deferential.

They ask fewer questions.

They want to be seen in a particular light.

And they also sort of engage in a lot of impression management, which is quite an exhausting enterprise.

Not quite the same thing as going on a first date, but you want to be seen well by your doctor.

So that means that you might not admit to certain embarrassing or socially sensitive symptoms.

Domestic violence, mental health, severe depression.

People take a long time to admit these things to their doctors and they delay help seeking.

And studies in the States show that about 85% of adults have admitted lying to their doctor or at least massaging the truth.

That interferes with the doctor being able to do their job too.

And doctors also tend to dominate the dialogue.

They don't mean to do it.

But again, that does tend to happen when you have that kind of psychological setup, if you will.

No, and I also want to emphasize, you know, my perspective and the perspective of my book is not to sort of have a love letter to technology.

In fact, I want to move away from the idea, AI's all good or it's all bad.

It's a much messier conversation.

But you're absolutely right.

The technology is the worst it's ever going to be, and it's going to get better.

And the fact of the matter is, because you don't have some of those visual cues when you chat with a chatbot, people tend to pour their hearts out to machines.