Young: Asking ChatGPT About Workers' Comp

Thursday, April 13, 2023 | 0

What does ChatGPT know about California workers’ comp? I decided I’d ask it, and during two sessions I posed about 45 questions on a wide range of California workers’ comp topics. I’ve included links to both discussions with ChatGPT.

Julius Young

In case you’re just returning from an isolated island, ChatGPT is the artificial intelligence chatbot recently unveiled by San Francisco’s OpenAI, with major investment by Microsoft.

My questions to ChatGPT cover a range of California workers’ comp topics: workers’ comp terminology, workers’ comp law, pending legislation, reliable sources for information on workers’ comp, historical information about reforms, events under different governors, current comp system problems and trends, etc.

System stakeholders would do well to pore over the ChatGPT sit-down. ChatGPT will continue to evolve, but warts and all, the future is here. You can draw your own conclusions about how this will affect the workers’ comp community going forward.

My conclusions? ChatGPT gets much right but makes many critical errors. Its algorithm clearly scrapes information but has trouble making fine distinctions. Some of the errors are minor, but others are egregious. Sometimes it injects incorrect facts or concepts into answers. An injured worker, employer or policymaker who relied on these answers might come to erroneous conclusions about the comp system.

For example, I had to correct ChatGPT, which asserted that California injured workers who can not return to work at their employer have a right to $16,000 in vocational retraining benefits. Reforms replaced that with a much smaller retraining voucher years ago.

It listed a bunch of incorrect names when asked about the Division of Workers' Compensation, Department of Industrial Relations and California Applicants' Attorneys Association leadership. It thought the Subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust Fund had something to do with behavioral health. 

It did direct me to what it considers reliable sources, such as the DWC website, the California Workers' Compensation Institute website, LexisNexis, etc. It directed me to some noteworthy blogs, including my own. Sometimes it seemed confident about answers but other times seemed to hedge and provide cautionary warnings.

ChatGPT did better in explaining system basics than in analyzing some of the thorny issues in California workers’ comp. But answers on apportionment, the qualified medical evaluator process, the utilization process and the politics of workers’ comp reform often included a mixture of correct and incorrect information.

I didn’t take the time to explicate all the errors to the chatbot, lest the discussion get bogged down. But the chatbot was apologetic when I did point out errors. It promised me it would try to do better.

Maybe it will. But if it doesn’t, then what?

I suggest you read my first and second ChatGPT discussions for yourself (note that the ChatGPT answers to my questions are in the black text boxes).

This is the first chat. 

The second chat is here.

Julius Young is an applicants' attorney and a partner for the Boxer & Gerson law firm in Oakland. This column was reprinted with his permission from his Workers Comp Zone blog on the firm's website.