“If we believe that in our most vulnerable moments … we want somebody who pays attention to us,” Michelle Mahon, the assistant director of nursing practice at the National Nurses United union, said, “then we need to be very careful in this moment.”

Ironically, I recall there was a study done just recently wherein a modern AI chatbot was compared with human doctors when giving medical advice online and the patients much preferred the bedside manner of the AI chatbot. Human doctors and nurses can get tired, bored, annoyed, and just generally may not have the ideal personality for interacting with patients. An AI can be programmed to be always polite, attentive, positive, and so forth, and it will do so. I could easily imagine a situation just a few years from now when I would be reassured by having an AI “attendant” when I’m in a hospital for something.

“There is something that technology can never do, and that is be human,” she said.

Indeed. And that may actually be a strength sometimes.