One of the strangest announcements at chipmaker Nvidia’s developer conference was that thousands of real nurses and hundreds of doctors have already taken part in an experiment that is being communicated as a “workforce” that is significantly cheaper than flesh-and-blood nurses.

The virtual nurse asks the patient how she is feeling and if she has been able to get the prescribed medicine; the woman asks back that she can take the medicine despite her penicillin sensitivity. From the patient’s point of view, the natural, everyday dialogue demonstrates how well the AI systems understand and how naturally they answer our questions – but this is probably a tenth of the work of a nurse.