Do mildly ill patients really need an offline doctor? Deciphering health choices from artificial intelligence diagnostic design and trust dynamics.

Discussions abound about whether AI can replace clinicians. This study investigates whether AI can replace clinicians by assessing its impact on offline healthcare use among mildly ill patients in China. Through two experiments, the authors show that AI's design influence types of trust in clinicians and examine how medical fear affects comfort with AI for mild-illness diagnoses.