I asked eight chatbots whether I had Covid-19. The answers ranged from ‘low’ risk to ‘start home isolation’

U.S. hospitals, public health authorities, and digital health companies have quickly deployed online symptom checkers to screen patients for signs of Covid-19. The idea is simple: By using a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence, they can keep anxious patients from inundating emergency rooms and deliver sound health advice from afar.

Or at least that was the pitch.

Late last week, a colleague and I drilled more than a half-dozen chatbots on a common set of symptoms — fever, sore throat, runny nose — to assess how they worked and the consistency and clarity of their advice. What I got back was a conflicting, sometimes confusing, patchwork of information about the level of risk posed by these symptoms and what I should do about them.

A chatbot posted on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that I had “one or more symptom(s) that may be related to COVID-19” and advised me to contact a health care provider within 24 hours “and start home isolation immediately.”

But a from Buoy Health, which says it is