Background: High-quality medical resources are in high demand worldwide, and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in medical care may help alleviate the crisis related to this shortage. The development of the medical AI industry depends to a certain extent on whether industry experts have a comprehensive understanding of the public’s views on medical AI. Currently, the opinions of the general public on this matter remain unclear. Objective: The purpose of this study is to explore the public perception of AI in medical care through a content analysis of social media data, including specific topics that the public is concerned about; public attitudes toward AI in medical care and the reasons for them; and public opinion on whether AI can replace human doctors. Methods: Through an application programming interface, we collected a data set from the Sina Weibo platform comprising more than 16 million users throughout China by crawling all public posts from January to December 2017. Based on this data set, we identified 2315 posts related to AI in medical care and classified them through content analysis. Results: Among the 2315 identified posts, we found three types of AI topics discussed on the platform: (1) technology and application (n=987, 42.63%), (2) industry development (n=706, 30.50%), and (3) impact on society (n=622, 26.87%). Out of 956 posts where public attitudes were expressed, 59.4% (n=568), 34.4% (n=329), and 6.2% (n=59) of the posts expressed positive, neutral, and negative attitudes, respectively. The immaturity of AI technology (27/59, 46%) and a distrust of related companies (n=15, 25%) were the two main reasons for the negative attitudes. Across 200 posts that mentioned public attitudes toward replacing human doctors with AI, 47.5% (n=95) and 32.5% (n=65) of the posts expressed that AI would completely or partially replace human doctors, respectively. In comparison, 20.0% (n=40) of the posts expressed that AI would not replace human doctors. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that people are most concerned about AI technology and applications. Generally, the majority of people held positive attitudes and believed that AI doctors would completely or partially replace human ones. Compared with previous studies on medical doctors, the general public has a more positive attitude toward medical AI. Lack of trust in AI and the absence of the humanistic care factor are essential reasons why some people still have a negative attitude toward medical AI. We suggest that practitioners may need to pay more attention to promoting the credibility of technology companies and meeting patients’ emotional needs instead of focusing merely on technical issues.

Health rumors not only incite unnecessary fears and skepticism, but may also cause individuals to refuse effective remedy and thus delay their treatment. Studies have found that health literacy may help the public identify the falsity of health rumors and avoid their negative impact. However, whether other types of literacy work in helping people disbelieve health rumors is still unknown. With a national survey in China (N = 1646), our study examined the effect of science literacy on rumor belief and further analyzed the moderating role of self-efficacy of science literacy in their relationship. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that science literacy significantly decreased the likelihood of people believing in health rumors, and moderator analysis showed that self-efficacy of science literacy plays a moderating role in this relationship; such that the relationship between science literacy and health rumor belief would be weakened if one′s self-efficacy of science literacy was low. This finding reveals that during campaigns to combat health rumors, improving and enhancing the self-efficacy of people′s science literacy is an effective way to prevent them from believing in health rumors. Our study highlights the benefits of science education in public health and the improvement of public science literacy.

BACKGROUND High-quality medical resources are in high demand worldwide, and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in medical care may help alleviate the crisis related to this shortage. The development of the medical AI industry depends to a certain extent on whether industry experts have a comprehensive understanding of the public’s views on medical AI. Currently, the opinions of the general public on this matter remain unclear. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study is to explore the public perception of AI in medical care through a content analysis of social media data, including specific topics that the public is concerned about; public attitudes toward AI in medical care and the reasons for them; and public opinion on whether AI can replace human doctors. METHODS Through an application programming interface, we collected a data set from the Sina Weibo platform comprising more than 16 million users throughout China by crawling all public posts from January to December 2017. Based on this data set, we identified 2315 posts related to AI in medical care and classified them through content analysis. RESULTS Among the 2315 identified posts, we found three types of AI topics discussed on the platform: (1) technology and application (n=987, 42.63%), (2) industry development (n=706, 30.50%), and (3) impact on society (n=622, 26.87%). Out of 956 posts where public attitudes were expressed, 59.4% (n=568), 34.4% (n=329), and 6.2% (n=59) of the posts expressed positive, neutral, and negative attitudes, respectively. The immaturity of AI technology (27/59, 46%) and a distrust of related companies (n=15, 25%) were the two main reasons for the negative attitudes. Across 200 posts that mentioned public attitudes toward replacing human doctors with AI, 47.5% (n=95) and 32.5% (n=65) of the posts expressed that AI would completely or partially replace human doctors, respectively. In comparison, 20.0% (n=40) of the posts expressed that AI would not replace human doctors. CONCLUSIONS Our findings indicate that people are most concerned about AI technology and applications. Generally, the majority of people held positive attitudes and believed that AI doctors would completely or partially replace human ones. Compared with previous studies on medical doctors, the general public has a more positive attitude toward medical AI. Lack of trust in AI and the absence of the humanistic care factor are essential reasons why some people still have a negative attitude toward medical AI. We suggest that practitioners may need to pay more attention to promoting the credibility of technology companies and meeting patients’ emotional needs instead of focusing merely on technical issues.