Covidiot News - How ChatGPT is Dispelling Anti-Vaxx Disinformation

ChatGPT is Debunking Myths on Social Media Around Vaccine Safety, Say Experts - Taylor & Francis Newsroom

According to a very recent report in the peer-reviewed journal, Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, the artificial intelligence chat bot, ChatGPT, is helping to dispel some of the myths surrounding vaccines, by providing the factual information that debunks the myths.

Having had all our COVID-19 vaccinations, including any seasonal boosters, and having just recovered from a mild, but unpleasant bout of it which my partner and I probably caught in France or during the flight back, I thought I would put this to the test with a little research of my own:

What are the commonest myths surrounding COVID vaccinations and how can these be debunked?

As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, several myths and misconceptions were circulating about COVID-19 vaccinations. Please note that the situation may have evolved since then, and new myths may have emerged. Here are some common myths and how to debunk them:

1. Myth: COVID-19 vaccines were developed too quickly and are not safe.
   • Debunking: COVID-19 vaccines went through rigorous clinical trials to ensure their safety and effectiveness. They were developed quickly due to unprecedented global collaboration, funding, and advances in vaccine technology. The emergency use authorization process involved thorough evaluation by regulatory agencies.
2. Myth: COVID-19 vaccines alter your DNA.
   • Debunking: None of the authorized COVID-19 vaccines alter your DNA. They work by teaching your immune system to recognize the spike protein on the virus's surface, not by altering your genetic code.
3. Myth: COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips or tracking devices.
   • Debunking: This is entirely false. COVID-19 vaccines do not contain any tracking devices or microchips. Such claims lack scientific basis.
4. Myth: COVID-19 vaccines can give you COVID-19.
   • Debunking: COVID-19 vaccines do not contain live virus and cannot give you COVID-19. They may, however, cause mild side effects like fatigue, fever, or soreness at the injection site, which is a sign that your immune system is responding to the vaccine.
5. Myth: Natural immunity is better than vaccine-induced immunity.
   • Debunking: While recovering from COVID-19 may provide some immunity, it's unpredictable and may not be as strong or long-lasting as immunity from vaccination. Vaccination provides a controlled and safe way to develop immunity without risking severe illness.
6. Myth: You don't need a vaccine if you've already had COVID-19.
   • Debunking: It's still recommended to get vaccinated even if you've had COVID-19. Vaccination can boost and prolong your immunity, providing stronger and more consistent protection.
7. Myth: COVID-19 vaccines cause infertility.
   • Debunking: There's no scientific evidence to support this claim. COVID-19 vaccines have not been shown to have any negative impact on fertility.
8. Myth: You can stop wearing masks and social distancing after getting vaccinated.
   • Debunking: While vaccination greatly reduces the risk of severe illness and transmission, it's still important to follow public health guidelines, as no vaccine is 100% effective. Continue wearing masks and practicing social distancing until advised otherwise by health authorities.

To debunk these myths effectively, it's important to rely on trusted sources of information such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other reputable health agencies. Encourage open and respectful conversations with friends and family to address their concerns and provide accurate information about COVID-19 vaccines.

The research, by three scientists based at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain, was rather more extensive. They asked ChatGPT the top 50 questions commonly asked about the COVID-19 vaccinations. The results showed that AI scored an average 9 out of 10 for accuracy. Where it fell short was in leaving some gaps in the answers, not in the accuracy of them.

As can be seen from my limited experiment, another shortcoming is that the answers can be out of date in a fast-moving field with intense research still being undertaken around the world. ChatGPT3.5 is 2 years behind the times and only as good as the state of knowledge as of September 2021 - which is when much of the disinformation was being promulgated by right-wing, anti-science extremists with a political agenda, such as QAnon, and other Trump-supporting disinformation sources.

Based on these findings, experts who led the study from the GenPoB research group based at the Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria (IDIS) – Hospital Clinico Universitario of Santiago de Compostela, say the AI tool is a “reliable source of non-technical information to the public”, especially for people without specialist scientific knowledge.

However, the findings do highlight some concerns about the technology such as ChatGPT changing its answers in certain situations.

Overall, ChatGPT constructs a narrative in line with the available scientific evidence, debunking myths circulating on social media. Thereby it potentially facilitates an increase in vaccine uptake. ChatGPT can detect counterfeit questions related to vaccines and vaccination. The language this AI uses is not too technical and therefore easily understandable to the public but without losing scientific rigor.

We acknowledge that the present-day version of ChatGPT cannot substitute an expert or scientific evidence. But the results suggest it could be a reliable source of information to the public.

Professor Antonio Salas, corresponding author
Faculty of Medicine
University of Santiago de Compostela, in Spain.

In 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) listed vaccine hesitancy among the top 10 threats to global health.

During the pandemic, misinformation spread via social media contributed to public mistrust of Covid-19 vaccination.

The authors of this study include those from the Hospital Clinico Universitario de Santiago which the WHO designated as a vaccine safety collaborating center in 2018.

Researchers at the center have been exploring myths around vaccine safety and medical situations that are falsely believed to be a reason not to get vaccinated. These misplaced concerns contribute to vaccine hesitancy.

The study authors set out to test ChatGPT’s ability to get the facts right and share accurate information around Covid vaccine safety in line with current scientific evidence.

ChatGPT enables people to have human-like conversations and interactions with a virtual assistant. The technology is very user-friendly which makes it accessible to a wide population.

However, many governments are concerned about the potential for ChatGPT to be used fraudulently in educational settings such as universities.

The study was designed to challenge the chatbot by asking it the questions most frequently received by the WHO collaborating center in Santiago.

Chat GPT provides different answers if the question is repeated ‘with a few seconds of delay’. Another concern we have seen is that this AI tool, in its present version, could also be trained to provide answers not in line with scientific evidence.

One can ‘torture’ the system in such a way that it will provide the desired answer. This is also true for other contexts different to vaccines. For instance, it might be possible to make the chatbot align with absurd narratives like the flat-earth theory, deny climate change, or object to the theory of evolution, just to give a few examples. However, it’s important to note that these responses are not the default behaviour of ChatGPT. Thus, the results we have obtained regarding vaccine safety can be probably extrapolated to many other myths and pseudoscience.

Professor Antonio Salas

The queries covered three themes. The first was misconceptions around safety such as the vaccine causing Long Covid. Next was false contraindications – medical situations where the jab is safe to use such as in breastfeeding women.

The questions also related to true contraindications – a health condition where the vaccine should not be used – and cases where doctors must take precautions eg a patient with heart muscle inflammation.

Next, experts analyzed the responses then rated them for veracity and precision against current scientific evidence, and recommendations from WHO and other international agencies.

The authors say this was important because algorithms created by social media and internet search engines are often based on an individual’s usual preferences. This may lead to ‘biased or wrong answers’, they add.

Results showed that most of the questions were answered correctly with an average score of nine out of 10 which is defined as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’. The responses to the three question themes were on average 85.5% accurate or 14.5% accurate but with gaps in the information provided by ChatGPT.

ChatGPT provided correct answers to queries that arose from genuine vaccine myths, and to those considered in clinical recommendation guidelines to be false or true contraindications.

However, the research team does highlight ChatGPT’s downsides in providing vaccine information.

In their published paper, the team explain how they assesses the performance of the AI Chat bot by asking three experts in the field to assess the answers:

ABSTRACT

Vaccine hesitancy is among the top 10 threats to global health, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In this exploration, we delve into ChatGPT capacity to generate opinions on vaccine hesitancy by interrogating this AI chatbot for the 50 most prevalent counterfeit messages, false and true contraindications, and myths circulating on the internet regarding vaccine safety. Our results indicate that, while the present version of ChatGPT’s default responses may be incomplete, they are generally satisfactory. Although ChatGPT cannot substitute an expert or the scientific evidence itself, this form of AI has the potential to guide users toward information that aligns well with scientific evidence.

Methods

To assess the ability of this AI in generating responses in accordance with the available scientific evidence, we challenged it with the 50 most-frequently asked questions received at WHO-CC-VSS and organized in three headings: (i) misconceptions regarding safety (such as the integration of mRNA vaccine into the human genome, or the vaccine causing Long COVID, etc.), (ii) false contraindications (related to the use of the vaccines in immunosuppressed patients, breastfeeding women, etc.), and (iii) true contraindications, safety signals, or precautions (linked to anaphylaxis, myocarditis, etc.). The answers were analyzed independently by three professionals (WHO-CC-VSS: Siddhartha Sankar Datta, IR-C, and FM-T), who specialize in this field. The responses were rated in terms of veracity and precision against the current scientific evidence and recommendations of the WHO and other supra-national agencies (see Supplementary Text). This exercise is highly relevant because popular information sources, such as social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, Instagram) or internet search engines (e.g., Google Web Search^TM) often employ algorithms that cater to public preferences, potentially leading to biased or incorrect answers.⁷

Results

Figure 1. Results of the evaluation by three experts of the 50 top popular questions related to vaccine safety, on (1) veracity, which categorized responses as accurate, accurate but with gaps, wrong, (2) precision, which assessed the quality of answers as excellent, good, average, insufficient, and (3) a quality rank, ranging from 1 (worst) to 10 (best) score. Average values for the 50 questions are provided. Veracity and precision were used as subjective terms based on the opinions of three independent experts. Therefore, the present study serves as a pragmatic exercise aimed at evaluating the potential scope of ChatGPT in addressing misconceptions and falsehoods related to vaccine safety. Abbreviations: Experts: E1, E2, and E3. See Supplementary Text for more details.

Salas, Antonio; Rivero-Calle, Irene; Martinón-Torres, Federico
Chatting with ChatGPT to learn about safety of COVID-19 vaccines – A perspective
Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics 19(2), 2235200 DOI: 10.1080/21645515.2023.2235200

Copyright: © 2023 The authors.
Published by Informa UK Ltd. (Taylor & Francis Group). Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Although these results are impressive, whether or not died-in-the-wool anti-vaxxers would accept the advice of an anonymous AI chat bot when they've pre-rejected that of experts, whom they assume to be part of a huge conspiracy, remains to be seen. Possibly the greater success would be with the hesitant group who might still be open to factual information.

The same case can probably be made for other wackadoodle beliefs, such as creationism, flat-Earthism, Homeopathy and Trumpism and its offshoot, QAnon-conspiracism, and those who attempted a coup d’état in the USA in support of Trump on January 6, 2021.

But, as the authors of this paper warn, if might be possible to train an AI chat bot to give answers supporting conspiracy theories or hostile to the science - which could already be happening in Russian disinformation troll farms - or chat bots could be hacked and questions redirected to disinformation sites, so AI must be used with caution and more than a little scepticism.

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Thank you for sharing!

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