ChatGPT: Friend or foe of sleep-related breathing disorders?

<bold>Introduction:</bold> The potential applications of ChatGPT in the medical field range from identifying potential research topics, to assisting professionals in clinical diagnosis and personalizing treatments and patient management. In healthcare settings ChatGPT also can improve patient’s knowledge by providing them with easily accessible and understandable information. <bold>Objective:</bold> Explore the effectiveness of ChatGPT in answering questions of patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, allowing participants to choose the best response between the ChatCPT response and that of clinician, in order to assess the perception and acceptance of the assistance provided. <bold>Materials and Methods:</bold> From January to July 2023, we collected the questions most frequently asked by patients at outpatient visits about obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. For each of these questions, we asked ChatGPT and a pulmonologyst with expertise in sleep disorders to answer. The answers were blinded and evaluated for appropriateness and simplicity in an online survey by patients who agreed to be contacted. <bold>Results:</bold> Forty-two participants (Men 22; Women 22) with a median age of 63, completed the questionnaire. For each question, more than half of them preferred the answer given by the Pulmonologist. This study underscores how the human experience is far from being surpassed by artificial intelligence (AI). However, understanding and meeting patient preferences will be critical to optimizing the collaborative synergy between AI and human expertise in the field of medical care.