[bwb]

ChatGPT has made a material difference in my ability to understand health problems, test results, and to communicate with doctors effectively. My wife and I were talking last night about how helpful it was in 2025. I hope that it continues to be good at this.

I want regulators to keep an eye on this and make smart laws. I don't want it to go away, as its value is massive in my life.

(One example, if you are curious: I've been doing rehab for a back injury for about 10 years. I worked with a certified trainer/rehab professional for many years and built a program to keep me as pain-free as possible. I rebuilt the entire thing with ChatGPT/Gemini about 6 weeks ago, and I've had less pain than at any other point in my life. I spent at least 12 hours working with AI to test and research every exercise, and I've got some knowledge to help guide me, but I was amazed by how far it has come in 12 months. I ran the results by a trainer to double-check it was well thought out.)

[trollbridge]

This sounds like excellent evidentiary material for a future insurer or government health provider to decide you're uninsurable, not eligible for a job, and so on.

And the great thing about it is that you already signed all your rights away for them to do this exact thing, when we could have had an open world with open models run locally instead where you got to keep your private health information private.

[simianwords]

Can you explain the exact way in which this is possible? It’s not legal to be denied jobs based on health. Not to deny insurance

[Flatterer3544]

And how would you know what they base their hiring upon? You would just get a generic automated response..

You would not be privy to their internal processes, and thusfar not be able to prove wrong doing. You would just have to hope for a new Snowden and that the found wrongdoings would actually be punished this time.

[bko]

I don't get it, if you're medically unfit for a job, why would you want the job?

For instance, if your job is to be on your feet all day and you can barely stand, then that job is not for you. I have never met employers that are so flush in opportunities of candidates that they just randomly choose to exclude certain people.

And if it's insurance, there's a group rate. The difference only variable is what the employee chooses out of your selected plans (why make a plan available if you don't want people to pick that one?) and family size. It's illegal to discriminate of family size and that does add up to 10k extra on the employer side. But there are downsides to hiring young single people, so things may balance out.

[zopa]

Usually there's one or two job responsibilities among many, that you can do, but not the way everyone else does them. The ADA requires employers to make reasonable accommodations, and some employers don't want to.

So less, the job requires you to stand all day, and more, once a week or so they ask you make a binder of materials, and the hole puncher they want you to use dislocates your hands (true story). Or, it's a desk job, but you can't get from your desk to the bathroom in your wheelchair unless they widen the aisles between desks (hypothetical).

[jjmarr]

Very large employers don't have a group rate. The insurance company administers the plan on behalf of the company according to pre-agreed rules, then the company covers all costs according to the employee health situation.

Read your policy!

[rafterydj]

I believe existing laws carve out exceptions for medical fitness for certain positions for this very reason. If I may, stepping back for a second: the reason privacy laws exist, is to protect people from bad behavior from employers, health insurance, etc.

If we circumvent those privacy laws, through user licenses, or new technology - we are removing the protections of normal citizens. Therefore, the bad behavior which we already decided as a society to ban can now be perpetrated again, with perhaps a fresh new word for it to dodge said old laws.

If I understand your comment, you are essentially wondering why those old laws existed in the first place. I would suggest racism or other systemic issues, and differences in insurance premiums, are more than enough to justify the existence of privacy laws. Take a normal office job as an example over a manual labor intensive job. No reason at all that health conditions should impact that. The idea of not being hired because I have a young child, or a health condition, that would raise the group rate from the insurer passing the cost to my employer (which would be in their best interest to do) is a terrible thought. And it happened before, and we banned that practice (or did our best to do so).

All this to say, I believe HIPAA helps people, and if ChatGPT is being used to partially or fully facilitate medical decision making, they should be bound under strict laws preventing the release of that data regardless of their existing user agreements.

[throwup238]

> I believe existing laws carve out exceptions for medical fitness for certain positions for this very reason.

It’s not just medical but a broad carve out called “bona fide occupational qualifications”. If there’s a good reason for it, hiring antidiscrimination laws allow exceptions.

[pseudalopex]

> And if it's insurance, there's a group rate.

Insurers derive rates for each employer from each employer's costs where laws allow this. And many employers self fund medical insurance.

[simianwords]

Do corporations use my google searches as data to hire me?

[well_ackshually]

Do you have any proof they don't? Do you have any proof the "AI System" that they use to filter out candidates doesn't "accidentally" access data ? Are you willing to bet that Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, won't sell access to that information?

Also, in some cases: they absolutely do. Try to get hired in Palantir and see how much they know about your browsing history. Anything related to national security or requiring clearances has you investigated.

[linkregister]

The last time I went through the Palantir hiring process, the effort on their end was almost exclusively on technical and cultural fit interviews. My references told me they had not been contacted.

Calibrating your threat model against this attack is unlikely to give you any alpha in 2026. Hiring at tech companies and government is much less deliberate than your mental model supposes.

The current extent of background checks is an API call to Checkr. This is simply to control hiring costs.

As a heuristic, speculated information to build a threat model is unlikely to yield a helpful framework.

[raw_anon_1111]

As if any company that did that is a company I would want to work for.

For instance back when I was interviewing at startups and other companies where I was going to be a strategic hire, I would casually mention how much I enjoyed spending time on my hobbies and with my family on the weekend so companies wouldn’t even extend an offer if they wanted someone “passionate” who would work 60 hours a week and be on call.

[moi2388]

“ Do you have any proof they don't?”

Do you have any proof they don’t have a goose randomly deciding to hire you?

The lack of proof gives no credence to it actually happening

[smsm42]

Probably not directly, that would be too vulnerable. But they could hire a background check company, that could pay a data aggregator to check if you searched for some forbidden words, and then feed the results into a threat model...

[Aurornis]

No they do not.

Anyone who has worked in hiring for any big company knows how much goes into ensuring hiring processes don't accidentally touch anything that could be construed as illegal discrimination. Employees are trained, policies and procedures are documented, and anyone who even accidentally says or does anything that comes too close to possibly running afoul of hiring laws will find themselves involved with HR.

The idea that these same companies also have a group of people buying private search information or ChatGPT conversations for individual applicants from somewhere (which nobody can link to) and then secretly making hiring decisions based on what they find is silly.

The arguments come with the usual array of conspiracy theory defenses, like the "How can you prove it's not happening" or the claims that it's well documented that it's happening but nobody can link to that documentation.

[anal_reactor]

Not yet. But Google itself would ask you for your resume if you happened to search for a lot of things related to programming.

[LPisGood]

Yes, I remember a friend that interned there a couple times showed me that. One of them was “list comprehensive python” and the Google website would split in 2 and give you some really fun coding challenges. I did a few, and you get 4(?) right you get a guaranteed interview I think. I intended to come back and spend a lot of time on an additional one, but I never did. Oops

[Aurornis]

"Ask you for your resume" is a funny way of saying "Show an advertisement to invite people to apply for a job"

[Aurornis]

I'm kind of amazed that so many people in this comment section believe their Google searches and ChatGPT conversations are being sold and used.

Under this conspiracy theory they'd have to be available for sale somewhere, right? Yet no journalist has ever picked up the story? Nobody has ever come out and whistleblown that their company was buying Google searches and denying applicants for searching for naughty words?

[nyrikki]

Google "doesn't sell your data" but RTB leaks that info, and the reason no one is called out for "buying Google searches and denying applicants for searching for naughty words" is because it is trivial to make legal.

It is well documented in many many places, people just don't care.

Google can claim that it doesn’t sell your data, but if you think that the data about your searches isn't being sold, here is just a small selection of real sources.

https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Mass-data-bre...

And it isn't paranoia, consumer surveillance is a very real problem, and one of the few paths to profitability for OpenAI.

https://techpolicy.sanford.duke.edu/data-brokers-and-the-sal...

https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/data_brokers_and_sec...

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/26AmendedCompla...

https://epic.org/a-health-privacy-check-up-how-unfair-modern...

[Aurornis]

This fails the classic conspiracy theory test: Any company practicing this would have to be large enough to be able to afford to orchestrate a chain of illegal transactions to get the data, develop a process for using it in hiring, and routinely act upon it.

The continued secrecy of the conspiracy would then depend on every person involved in orchestrating this privacy violation and illegal hiring scheme keeping it secret forever. Nobody ever leaking it to the press, no disgruntled employees e-mailing their congress people, no concerned citizens slipping a screenshot to journalists. Both during and after their employment with the company.

To even make this profitable at all, the data would have to be secretly sold to a lot of companies for this use, and also continuously updated to be relevant. Giant databases of your secret ChatGPT queries being sold continuously in volume, with all employees at both the sellers, the buyers, and the users of this information all keeping it perfectly quiet, never leaking anything.

[drawnwren]

It doesn't though. As an aside, I have been using a competitor to chatgpt health (nori) for a while now, and I have been getting an extreme amount of targeted ads about HRV and other metrics that the app consumes. I have been collecting health metrics through wearables for years, so there has been no change in my own search patterns or beliefs about my health. I just thought ai + health data was cool.

[purrcat259]

> And how would you know what they base their hiring upon?

GDPR Request. Ah wait, regulation bad.

[DetectDefect]

> It’s not legal to be denied jobs based on health.

There is a vast gap between what is not legal and what is actually actionable in a court of law, which is well known to a large power nexus.

[neilv]

> It’s not legal to be denied jobs based on health. Not to deny insurance

The US has been pretty much a free-for-all for surveillance and abusing all sorts of information, even when illegal to do so. On the rare occasions that they get caught, the penalty is almost always a handslap, and they know it.

[trollbridge]

How are you ever going to prove this?

You just get an automated denial from the ATS that's based on the output from AI inference engine.

[joe_the_user]

The ADA made it illegal to discriminate against job seekers for health conditions and ObamaCare made it illegal to base cover and rates on pre-existing conditions.

What are the chances those bills last long in the current administration and supreme court?

[darth_avocado]

And yet, if you want life insurance you can’t get it with a bunch of pre existing conditions. And you can be discriminated against as a job seeker as long as they don’t make it obvious.

[matt3D]

These strawman arguments lack nuance.

If the person can use AI to lead a noticeably better life, something that may have been impossible previously due to economic circumstance, then the first order benefits outweigh the second order drawbacks.

I’m not disputing what you’re saying, I just think that treating it like a zero sum game every time the conversation comes up is showing an immense amount of privilege.

You, me, the parent commenter; we’re all dying, we don’t have time to optimise for the best outcome.

[xigoi]

If the tool that allows you to have a “noticeably better life” is heavily subsidized by venture capital, you have turned yourself into a ticking bomb.

[newyankee]

there is also no easy way to build a perfect health AI without giving up some privacy. Now there will always be risks, but this is why I think China might overtake everyone else in Healthcare AI at the least

[carlosjobim]

What do you consider the purpose of life to be? To me being in good health is immensely more important than health insurance, a government health plan, or a job.

I know that neither health insurers nor any government agency nor anybody else have even 0,0000000000000001% as much interest in my health, well being and survival as I do.

When it is the matter of my health and my life, I care as much about what an insurer or employer thinks as I would care about what the Ayatollah of Iran thinks. Or what you think. Ie: Those opinions are without any value at all.

[paulryanrogers]

Most of us cannot afford to pay the full cost of healthcare for an emergency or major intervention. Medical bankruptcy is an increasingly common phenomenon.

So if insurers can cut you off based on your ChatGPT queries or test results then you may find yourself in serious debt, homeless, without medical care, etc

[carlosjobim]

Money is imaginary. Health is health. Sacrificing your health and your life in order to hedge against a completely hypothetical situation is not a dignified existence.

Bankruptcy is of course much preferable to not having your health. Even having to argue this is bizarre. We are not human batteries in the Matrix. Our purpose is not to please institutions or destroy our own lives for fear of hypothetical situations.

Don't you understand that you only have one life and one body. That's it. You have 70 or 80 years with one body and one mind. That is the only thing which matters.

[nrb]

Health is imaginary, life is imaginary, this is all imaginary. There’s no point in drawing an arbitrary line in the sand for what our purpose is or lecturing us on what we should be focusing on.

We have seen, again and again, business encroach on our quality of life and it does warrant skepticism and alertness about their motivations.

[carlosjobim]

What are you even saying? You are outright denying reality it seems. Health and life are not imaginary. They are as real as it gets.

[kouteiheika]

> when we could have had an open world with open models run locally instead where you got to keep your private health information private

But we can have that? If you have powerful enough hardware you can do it, right now. At very least until the anti-AI people get their way and either make the models' creators liable for what the models say or get rid of the "training is fair use" thing everyone depends on, in which case, sure, you'll have to kiss legal open-weight models goodbye.

[beepbopboopp]

This is an argument against the general data collection internet NOT chatGPT.

[mrcincinnatus]

Precisely right. Related. https://www.socialcooling.com/

[SecretDreams]

System working as intended!

[lotsofpulp]

If an insurer is able to reduce (or recoup) costs from likelier risks, then the remaining insureds benefit from lower premiums.

If the goal is providing subsidies (i.e. wealth transfers), then insurance is not the way to do it. That is the government’s role.

[alpinisme]

Insurance that is maximally responsive to patient health changes in terms of cost (ie making healthier people pay less) ends up being an inefficient way of just having people pay for their healthcare directly.

And it naturally means the people with highest premiums are the least likely to be able to afford it (the elderly, the disabled, those with chronic conditions that make them less likely to maintain high earning jobs steadily, etc)

[Workaccount2]

The obvious retort to this is:

"If I focused on my health, ate clean and exercised daily, why should I also be subsidizing Billy "video-games-are-my-exercise" fatass's chronic health conditions?"

This is why there is a hyperfixation on shifting blame away from (failing) individuals. The logic breaks when Billy has to admit he just hates exercising.

And yes, before you comment, I know "maybe Billy has (condition outside all control) so it's not on him". Please, see what I just said in the previous statement.

[ImPostingOnHN]

The entire purpose of health insurance is spreading risk across a wide and diverse risk pool.

> why should I also be subsidizing Billy "video-games-are-my-exercise" fatass's chronic health conditions?"

Nobody is asking you to: enrolling in insurance is a choice in the USA.

Also, replace "chronic health conditions" with "unavoidable inherited genetic risk factors". We don't want Billy to be screwed for life just because he was born to a suboptimal combination of parents.

[Workaccount2]

The most cataclysmic thing that could happen to healthcare would be chronically healthy individuals creating their own health insurance.

[alpinisme]

In some respects, the ideal world is one in which everyone’s premiums are tied to a free and easy Apple Watch-like device that silently tracks exercise, blood sugar at a frequency that can tell when you ate a big dessert, air quality (and the presence of smoke or pollution), blood alcohol content, whether you are in speeding cars, whether you are participating in dangerous sports, etc. Such a system would directly confront individuals with the cost of their behaviors in an economic way, probably leading many or even most people to improve their habits in the aggregate.

But such a system comes at other costs that most people intuitively feel infringes on core values they have.

Edit to add: this system would actually have some great advantages over an “existing conditions” tax in that now you pay low rates until you have diabetes, all during the time you are leading the unhealthy lifestyle. But once you have it you are not rewarded for starting to exercise and eat healthy and get it under control. In the hypothetical scenario above, you’d be punished economically during the period you were building bad habits and you would be able to restore sane costs after course correction

[Terr_]

There's a similar phenomenon when people grouse about paying taxes for "roads I don't even use." Even if we assume zero indirect benefits, the billing infrastructure necessary to truly achieve that goal would create a creepy panopticon of constant surveillance.

This is difficult to convey to certain brands of self-styled libertarians.

[duskdozer]

It also fails to take into account the fact that eating clean and exercising daily doesn't eliminate your risk of getting cancer at age 40 or having your car's brakes fail randomly.

[Workaccount2]

Its dumb to create an insurance program using anecdotes.

The system can accommodate (and frankly is the ideal many people strive for) some health nut getting long drawn out cancer battle at 41. Its rare enough to be noise in the giant money payout pool.

Obesity and it's litany of health effects are not rare, and next to age, are a dominating signal drawing money from the pool.

[OverTheTetons]

Is the obvious retort to this:

I don't think we should play arbiter for who has and hasn't lived a healthy enough life to still believe they should get healthcare?

[Analemma_]

Yeah, I think what Workaccount2 is not realizing is that there's no bottom to "you have higher risk factors, why should I pay for you?", and so once you start down that way you may not like where it ends up. Some hobbies have higher injury rates, why should I pay for your health care if you choose to play those? Some parts of the country have lower life expectancies, why should I pay for your health care if you choose to live there?

[FireBeyond]

> "If I focused on my health, ate clean and exercised daily, why should I also be subsidizing Billy "video-games-are-my-exercise" fatass's chronic health conditions?"

Then why are you not asking your insurer why they cover a lot less preventative health or other options. For example, Kaiser flat out refuses to prescribe GLP-1s for weight loss, others insurers are the same with gym subsidies or not covering nutritionists.

But they'll happily pay for your gastric bypass.

[IanCal]

> Insurance that is maximally responsive to patient health changes in terms of cost (ie making healthier people pay less) ends up being an inefficient way of just having people pay for their healthcare directly.

That's true for predictable costs, but not true for unpredictable ones - which is the point of most insurance (housing, car, etc). The point and use of insurance is to move risk to entities that can bear it.

Utility is non-linear with money, and so you easily have situations where spending X times more on something "costs" you more than X times if measured in how useful the money is to you.

Typically, as you have more money, each further dollar doesn't provide as much benefit as the last (sometimes things are lumpy, the difference between "not quite enough to pay rent" and "just enough to pay rent" is huge, but broadly this is true). Going from $1000 to $10000 is more impactful than $1001000 to $1010000.

That means that moving the other way, each additional dollar spent has a greater personal cost to you.

Therefore, sharing unlikely but high expenses can mean that your expected cost is the same (if there's no profit/middleman) or a bit higher, but your expected personal cost is lower.

[monooso]

Not a US citizen, so a genuine question: do US health insurance companies have a track record of passing on such savings to consumers?

That has not been my impression as an outside observer.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

"passing on such savings to consumers"

Absolutely not. They inflate prices by 200% and then give you 20% "savings" back. The whole idea of a health insurance company as publicly traded corporation is totally insane. They are designed to extract maximum profit from wherever they can get. The is no incentive to save money for patients. Any savings go to shareholders.

[lotsofpulp]

There are plenty of health insurers that are not publicly traded, and in fact are non profit, and yet they have the same premiums as the publicly traded ones. See Kaiser, Providence, Cambia, Regence, and the dozens of other BCBS affiliated plans.

If your claims were true, then the publicly traded businesses would have no customers.

[Buttons840]

> There are plenty of health insurers

Yeah. And they all ultimately have to be paid by my health premiums.

When I visit my parents, and they have the TV on, and I see 3 90-second advertisments for prescription drugs every single commercial break, I remind myself that, no matter what, we have to keep funding these commercials. Whatever the US decides to do for healthcare, I guarantee these commercials will continue to be paid for.

I also guarantee that pharmacy company executives, and insurance company executives will continue to make millions of dollars a year. We have to keep paying them as well.

The huge bureaucracy of insurance workers who decide what is and isn't approved, that all will have to be paid for as well.

I used to work for a company that did background checks on doctors, we had different customers in every state, every state had their own companies and their own system for maintaining and verifying doctors licenses. These different companies in each state have to be paid. I made good money as a programmer doing background checks for these various companies and my paycheck also ultimately came from your medical premiums.

I think we need to stop and appreciate the patriotic duty we all have to pay high premiums and medical costs, because every time we do we're propping up a huge portion of US workers. -- Just kidding. The truth is a lot of companies need to go out of business before things get cheaper.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

I would argue the non profit insurers are as profit oriented as the publicly traded ones.

[zdragnar]

Ostensibly, the Affordable Care Act was supposed to reduce the average family's premiums by $2,500 a year.

When that didn't happen, the story changed to that number being how much more premiums would have risen.

Insurance premiums have only gone up as far as I can remember, though there's a ton of variables at play here. Inflation is an obvious one, plus continual introduction of more and more costly treatments- biologic injections, cancer therapies and so forth. The unfortunate increase in obesity rates in my lifetime (along with all the health complications) has been a significant contributor as well.

It all adds up.

[tzs]

> Insurance premiums have only gone up as far as I can remember, though there's a ton of variables at play here.

An interesting thing about rising health costs is that it has happened at roughly similar rates in most first world countries for the last 50+ years.

For example in 1990 the UK, FR, and US were paying 2.0, 2.2, and 2.6 times their 1980 costs per capita. By 2000 that was 4.1, 4.1, and 4.2. By 2018 (the last year I had data for when I calculated this a few years ago) it was 10.6, 7.5, and 10.2.

Here's the 2000 to 2018 increase for those and some others: DE, FR, CA, IT, JP, UK, US were 2.1, 1.8, 2.0, 1.7, 2.6, 2.6, 2.3.

When politicians in the US talk about rising health care costs they usually put the blame on recent policies from opposing politicians. That so many first world countries with so many different health care systems all have seen similar increases for the last 50+ years suggests that it is due to something they all have in common and that government policy doesn't affect it much.

[alright2565]

The individual mandate part of the ACA was the part designed to reduce premiums. You need healthy participants in any health insurance scheme to subsidize unhealthy people.

That was eliminated by a Republican bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

[zdragnar]

Yes, and that was years after the ACA took full effect and the rates did not decrease.

Most people get insurance through their employer, and most employer plans (at medium to large companies) are self funded by the company and merely administered by insurance companies.

That means the healthy participants had no effect on those plans whatsoever. Even at peak, the individual mandate had only cut the number of uninsured by half, and the effect on rates was negligible.

[kjkjadksj]

FWIW the state of california has its own individual mandate.

[lotsofpulp]

In 2010, it was already known the proportion of old to young was increasing, and the proportion of doctors was decreasing.

Prices were always going to increase.

[butvacuum]

you're correct. UHC is so hated because they're a "pharmacy benefits manager." - an organization that exists soley to make your life so miserable you give up on getting your medication.

[FireBeyond]

Aetna has their own scumminess. Want the convenience of 90 day refills? Have to use their mail order service. They'll refuse to authorize >30 day supplies of medication through any other pharmacy.

[DANmode]

These comments (on UHC, Aetna) always strike me the same way as complaining about the lack of inflight meal,

baggage fees,

or lack of WiFi,

on, say, Spirit Airlines.

You looked at the list of insurers/jobs offering health insurance carriers,

selected the cheapest, or second-cheapest option,

and you’re surprised they’re harder to work with?

How?

[butvacuum]

aetna uses UHC for this.

[lotsofpulp]

Health insurance companies in the US are not allowed to deny coverage, and can only price premiums based on age (highest premium capped at 3x lowest premium, location, and tobacco use.

https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/pre-existing-conditions/

https://www.healthcare.gov/how-plans-set-your-premiums/

Health insurance premiums in the US are more tax than insurance. They also have low single digit profit margins with less than desirable shareholder returns (many are non profit in the first place), so they don’t have much room to lower premiums without also reducing healthcare expenses.

The insurance business in general is very competitive and not very profitable, so an insurer that tries to collect outsized premiums will usually suffer a loss of business.

[monooso]

> The insurance business in general is very competitive and not very profitable...

Knowing several Americans, and how much they pay for health insurance (and are still required to pay for some things "out of pocket"), this is incredible to me. And that's before you even get to the process of making a claim.

Such a broken system.

[SpicyLemonZest]

We agree that insurance is not the right way to handle health as a product, since some people predictably need much more medical treatment than others. But it’s how the US has chosen to do it, so we have to do it in a way that works. Correctly identifying a systemic issue won’t pay your medical bills.

[lotsofpulp]

That is not how the US has chosen to do it. The ACA prohibits using anything other than age, location, and tobacco use for premium pricing, and the ACA prohibits denying coverage (resulting in a wealth transfer from healthy to sick).

Even the age rating factor is capped at 3, so there are also massive wealth transfers from young to old.

Mathematically, health insurance premiums in the US are more tax than insurance premium.

[trollbridge]

The ACA doesn't prevent some magical fairy-dust AI from pricing premiums, though, which is currently all the rage amongst insurers. (Not because AI will be accurate or anything, but because it offers a completely opaque pricing process.)

[avalys]

Why not? If the only factors allowed to be used in settings premiums are age, location and smoking status, then those are the only parameters that could be input to an AI model, no?

[hackitup7]

I've had a similar positive experience and I'm really surprised at the cynicism here. You have a system that is good at reading tons of literature and synthesizing it, which then applies basic logic. What exactly do the cynics think that doctors do?

I don't use LLMs as the final say, but I do find them pretty useful as a positive filter / quick gut check.

[mattmanser]

Because we've all used LLMs.

The make stuff up. Doctors do not make stuff up.

They agree with you. Almost all the time. If you ask an AI whether you have in fact been infected by a werewolf bite, they're going to try and find a way to say yes.

[bwb]

Doctors make stuff up all the time; they might deeply believe they are not, but they are detectives trying to figure out what is going on in a complex system.

AI is a tool that can be useful in this process.

Also, our current medical science is primitive. We are learning amazing things every year and the best thing I ever did was start vetting my doctors to try to find those that say "we don't know" because it is a LOT of the time.

[duskdozer]

>Doctors do not make stuff up.

Haha. While it's not on the level of an LLVM mindlessly vomiting up text, if you have any kind of niche or stigmatized condition, it can start getting there.

[ekjhgkejhgk]

If the person is telling you "I had a problem, did what the LLM said, it worked", does that not work a new evidence for you? Is it not possible that someone has had a different experience from you? Is it not possible that they're good to different degrees in different domains?

I just asked chatgpt:

> I have the following information on a user. What's his email?

> user: mattmanser

> created: March 12, 2009

> karma: 17939

> about: Contact me @ my username at gmail.com

Chatgpt's answer:

> Based on the information you provided, the user's email would be:

> [e-mail]

Does this serve as evidence that some times LLMs get it right?

I think that your model of curent tech is as out of date as your profile.

[AuthAuth]

There are certain domains where we can accept a high degree of mistakes and health is not one of them. People are reacting they way they are because its obvious that LLMs are currently not reliable enough to be trusted to distrubute health advice. To me it doesnt matter that ChatGPT health sometimes gives good advice or some people _feel_ like it helped them. I'm not sure I even trust people when they say that given how much the LLM just affirms whatever they tell it.

[ekjhgkejhgk]

I'm not saying LLMs don't make mistakes, I'm saying that some times get it right and so you shouldn't be surprised that you'll hear some positive stories.

But you don't even believe these are success stories then, so I guess you can never be convinced.

[AuthAuth]

You'll hear some positive stories from people who think rocks heal them

[EagnaIonat]

This is the crux of the argument from the article.

> get to know your members even before the first claim

Basically selling your data to maximise profits from you and ensure companies don't take on a burden.

You are also not protected by HIPAA using ChatGPT.

[bwb]

I'm in Europe btw, but yes I hope Americans get protection soon. I expect the backlash if that were to happen is enough to trigger legislative action.

[JKCalhoun]

I also think health (and car-problem diagnosis) are excellent tasks for LLMs.

The you-are-the-product thing, and privacy, has me wondering when Apple will step in and provide LLM health in a way we can trust.

I know I say that and I face the slings and arrows of those distrusting Apple, but I still believe they're the one big company out there that knows that there is money in being the one guy that doesn't sell your data.

[narmiouh]

I don't think one can deny the benefits here. The detractors here are like don't build a side walk coz someone may trip and fall or don't plant trees in your front yard coz of what happened to the Texas governor.

Most would likely agree that everything needs a balanced approach, bashing a service completely as evil and fully advocating people to stay away vs claiming the service is flawless (which the OP isn't doing btw) aren't either a balanced position.

Think different doesn't have to mean think extreme.

[jsheard]

On the other hand, sometimes you end up like this guy. Are you feeling lucky?

https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/08/after-using-chatgpt-m...

[vjvjvjvjghv]

You could also list plenty of horror stories where people went to medical professionals and got screwed over. There is this myth that people can go to doctors and get perfect attention and treatment. Reality is far from that

[datsci_est_2015]

There’s the concept of “personal advocacy” when receiving healthcare. Unfortunately, you’ll only get the best outcomes if you continually seek out treatment with diligence and patience.

But framing it as a “myth [of] perfect attention and treatment” sounds a bit like delegitimizing the entire healthcare industry in a way that makes me raise my eyebrow.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

"But framing it as a “myth [of] perfect attention and treatment” sounds a bit like delegitimizing the entire healthcare industry in a way that makes me raise my eyebrow."

It doesn't delegitimize the whole industry. It points out real problems. A lot of patients are not given enough attention and don't get the correct treatment because the doctors didn't listen but rushed through things.

[datsci_est_2015]

I was criticizing the rhetoric, not the sentiment. I’m skeptical of an argument when it flies too close to what I associate with irrationality and pseudoscience, especially considering what’s happened in medicine over the past 5 years.

The “myth [of] perfect attention and treatment” is an easy strawman for grifters and conmen to take advantage of: see RFK Jr.

[cm2012]

Id say the Healthcare industry works hard but is probably working at like 20% of their possible productivity due to systemic issues.

[datsci_est_2015]

How do you measure productivity? Profit per employee has never been higher, probably, as PE and other rent-seeking leeches (residency caps) have wrapped their fingers around the throat of the industry.

Positive outcomes per patient is probably also higher, due to research and technology advances. So many lives saved that would have been written off just a decade or two ago (e.g. spina bifida).

But I agree with you that there’s a hypothetical universe where seeking healthcare as an American doesn’t suck, I just don’t know if “productive” is the right word to describe it.

[willparks]

Yes, there's been a tension between personal advocacy and the system for a long time. Doctors roll there eyes when a patient mentions they self diagnosed on WebMD. LLM's will accelerate self diagnosis immensely. This has the potential to help patients, but it is just a starting point. Of course, it should be verified from actual trained doctors.

[datsci_est_2015]

Agreed, I described it elsewhere in this thread as K-shaped outcomes.

[arter45]

A big part of the legal implications of LLMs and AI in general is about accountability.

If you are treated by a human being and it goes sideways, you could sue them and/or the hospital. Now, granted, you may not always win, it may take some time, but there is some chance.

If you are "treated" by an LLM and it goes sideways, good luck trying to sue OpenAI or whoever is running the model. It's not a coincidence that LLM providers are trying to put disclaimers and/or claims in their ToS that LLM advice is not necessarily good.

Same goes for privacy. Doctors and hospital are regulated in a way that you have a reasonable, often very strong, expectation of privacy. Consider doctor-patient confidentiality, for example. This doesn't mean that there is no leak, but you can hold someone accountable. If you send your medical data to ChatGPT and there is a leak, are you going to sue OpenAI?

The answer in both cases is, yes, you should probably be able to sue an LLM provider. But because LLM providers have a lot of money (way more than any hospital!), are usually global (jurisdiction could be challenging) and, often, they say themselves that LLM advice is not necessarily good (which doctors cannot say that easily), you may find that way more challenging than suing a doctor or a hospital.

[lionkor]

Are medical professionals not usually held accountable, globally speaking?

[ipaddr]

Lawsuits against medical professionals are difficult in many cases impossible for the average person to win. They are held less accountable compared to other professions.

[sarchertech]

> They are held less accountable compared to other professions.

I have no idea what other professions you’re talking about. Doctors are the only professionals where it’s common for multi million dollar judgements to be awarded against individuals. In may cases, judgements larger than their malpractice insurance limits.

Take a doctor working alone overnight in the ER. They are responsible for every single thing that happens. One of the 4 NPs that they are supposed to have time to supervise while they are stuck sedating a kid for ortho to work on makes a mistake—the doctor is the one that’s getting sued. A nurse misinterprets an order and gives too much of something, doctor is getting sued. Doesn’t matter if it’s their fault or not. Literally ever single one of the dozens of patients that comes in with a runny nose or a tummy ache, or a headache is their responsibility and could cost them their house. And there are far too many patients for them to actually supervise fully. They have to trust and delegate, but in practice they are still 100% on the hook for mistakes. For accepting this responsibility they might get $10 per NP patient that they supervise.

Healthcare professionals also occasionally face criminal prosecution for mistakes at a level that wouldn’t even be me a career in other professions.

> Lawsuits against medical professionals are difficult in many cases impossible for the average person to win

Malpractice attorneys operate on contingency, so they’re more accessible to the average person than most kinds of attorneys. It’s one of the many reasons healthcare is so expensive in the US.

It’s harder for a doctor to get fired for saying showing up late to work than it is for a cook at McDonald’s I guess, but compared to other professionals? I’ve seen software engineers regularly skip through companies leaving disasters in their wake for their entire careers. MBAs regularly destroy companies, lawyers and finance bros get away with murder, and police officers literally get away with murder.

The only profession that faces anywhere near the accountability that doctors do that I can think of might be civil engineers.

[JKCalhoun]

"…a 60-year-old man who had a “history of studying nutrition in college” decided to try a health experiment: He would eliminate all chlorine from his diet…"

You can see already that this can easily go sideways. This guy is already exploring the nether regions of self-medication.

It would be ideal if LLMs recognized this and would not happily offer up bromine as a substitute for chlorine, but I suspect this guy would have greedily looked for other shady advice if LLMs had never existed.

[bwb]

You have to use your head, just like online forums or with doctors :)

I've had doctors tell me to do insane things. Some that caused lasting damage. Better to come with a trust-but-verify attitude to humans and AI.

[zaptheimpaler]

No, there's a difference between radically changing your diet and changing up your stretch/strength routine.. you don't just "end up" like one of them, you can evaluate that the downside risk of the latter is much lower and try it safely while recognizing that an extreme diet might not be so safe to try without any professional guidance.

[wiseowise]

Natural selection at work. I don’t see anything suspicious here.

[glemion43]

The man in the article did not use it as a research help and did not verify it with experts.

So what's your argument?

[mhb]

Did he also drive into a lake following Google Maps' driving directions?

[datsci_est_2015]

It seems like outcomes are probably K-shaped: those who are capable of critical thinking and deciding what type of information should be confirmed by a healthcare professional and what type of information is relatively riskless to consume from ChatGPT should have positive outcomes.

Those who are prone to disinformation and misinterpretation may experience some very negative health outcomes.

[JKCalhoun]

I agree with that. The question I suppose is whether an LLM can detect, perhaps by the question itself, if they are dealing with someone (I hate to say it) "stable".

Anyone asking how to commit suicide, as a recent example, should be an obvious red flag. We can get more nuanced from there.

[tedmiston]

> The question I suppose is whether an LLM can detect, perhaps by the question itself, if they are dealing with someone (I hate to say it) "stable".

GPT-5 made a major advance on mental health guardrails in sensitive conversations.

https://www.theverge.com/news/718407/openai-chatgpt-mental-h...

https://openai.com/index/strengthening-chatgpt-responses-in-...

[nitwit005]

If you'd been doing the rehab for 10 years, what did you need exactly? It seems like you should have had a decade to ask whatever questions you wanted.

[bwb]

That was a specific example where AI helped me revamp my workout. No workout stays static; it has evolved over the years, in small ways. With this change I threw out 60% of it, and replaced it with a lot of work to make sure I was working full body and taking into account the injury. I was having more pain in 2025 and was only pain-free around 90% of the time. I wanted to get stronger but also revet everything I was doing to hopefully get out of that pain.

Hope that helps!

You can ask a trainer questions, they are super helpful and taught a lot, but it is still one person, and they don't often sit around at night reading university/research papers on the injury, etc.

[ryan_n]

That's awesome that it's helped you so much, chronic back pain is awful. Is it possible though, that this could be interpreted as a failure of the trainer to come up with a successful treatment plan for you? "Sudden" relief after 10 years of therapy just because you changed the program seems like they were just having you perform the wrong exercises no?

[narmiouh]

We have to also understand that the trainer didn't get to spend 12 hours of researching every minutia or do a trial and error study to get to where OP got to. This doesn't necessarily mean the trainer failed, just that they were constrained by time, which OP wasn't. And I think that is the essence of this tech, when used wisely, I can lead to results like these which you can't get despite having access to the best talent for a limited time. Only the well afforded can afford a full time trainer/therapist.

[ryan_n]

Absolutely, I didn't mean any disrespect towards any of the professionals helping OP with their back issues. It can be an incredibly hard thing to treat.

[bwb]

The trainer was a godsend, got me to ~95% pain-free, and taught me all kinds of things. He is amazing.

But 2025 was maybe down to 90% pain-free, and I want to get stronger. So I did a big rewrite of my entire workout plan and checked everything. AI wasn't perfect, but it was amazing when you already know some.

It is still a tool I had to direct, and it took a few days of work. But I'm amazed at where it got me to. It took the injury into consideration and my main sport, and built around that. In the past I tried do this online and couldn't do it given the numerous factors involved. It was not perfect, but over the course of a few days, I was able to sort it out (and test with a trainer on the approach a few weeks after).

I've been 100% pain free for 6 weeks in a way I haven't felt in a long time.

[DrammBA]

Without getting into your specific injury or sport, what was the biggest change compared to the trainer’s program?

Was it something unexpected like "exercise this seemingly unrelated muscle group that has nothing do with your injury but just happens to reduce pain by 75% for some inexplicable reason"?

Or was it something more mundane like "instead of exercising this muscle every day, do it every other day to give it time to rest"?

[bwb]

Good question!

I'm not entirely sure, but here is my educated guess.

The biggest change was that I spent a lot of time vetting each exercise for my specific injury points and asking whether this was really the best way to work that muscle group. I ended up replacing 60% of the workout with new exercises that allow me to lift more weight or target different muscle groups, while taking pressure off those injury points.

I think I had grown to use more weight with a few exercises that, on paper, shouldn't cause a problem, but were causing more stress on my injury and the supporting muscles. I found ways to isolate those muscles without putting as much tension on that area. I also added more core-strength exercises, including some for the hip flexors, which might be helping support as well. I was likely doing planks for too long, and switched to hardstyle, etc.

Last year, I was pain-free 90% of the year, and most years I run around 95% to 98%. Last year just felt different, and the rehab wasn't working the way it was. Since switching to this workout about 8 weeks ago I've been 100% pain free in a way that is hard to describe. My back has just felt light and happy, I can jump up on boxes and back down with no worries.

This is on the back of 10 years of rehab, 10 years of education, 10 years of learning about my injury and body, etc. AI is not some magic button to all the people who might jump on this thread :), it's a tool, and I want to stress that. But I've tried to do this in years past, and I couldn't do it. This was a game-changer. I tred with ChatGPT3 and it was useless at the time as well.

[jmyeet]

This kind of comment scares me because it's an example of people substituring professional advice for an LLM where LLMs are known to hallucinate or otherwise simply make stuff up. I see this all the time when I write queries and get the annoying Gemini AI snippet on a subject I know about and often I'll see the AI make provably and objectively false statements.

[bwb]

You have to use critical thinking + it helps to have some info on the subject + it shouldn't be used to perform self-surgery :)

I spent about 12 hours over 2 days, checking, rechecking, and building out a plan. Then I did 2-hour sessions on YouTube, over several weeks, learning the new exercises with proper form (and that continues as form is hard). Followed by an appointment with a trainer to test my form and review the workout as a hole (which he approved of). No trainer really knows how this injury will manifest, so a lot is also helped because I have 10 years of exp.

This isn't a button click, and now follow the LLM lemming. This is a tool like Google search but better.

I could not have done this before using the web. I would have had to read books and research papers, then try to understand which exercises didn't target x muscle groups heavily, etc. I just couldn't do that. The best case would have been a trainer with the same injury, maybe.

[simianwords]

You are exaggerating. LLMs simply don’t hallucinate all that often, especially ChatGPT.

I really hate comments such as yours because anyone who has used ChatGPT in these contexts would know that it is pretty accurate and safe. People also can generally be trusted to identify good from bad advice. They are smart like that.

We should be encouraging thoughtful ChatGPT use instead of showing fake concern at each opportunity.

Your comment and many others just try to signal pessimism as a virtue and has very less bearing on reality.

[avalys]

All we can do is share anecdotes here, but I have found ChatGPT to be confidently incorrect about important details in nearly every question I ask about a complex topic.

Legal questions, question about AWS services, products I want to buy, the history a specific field, so many things.

It gives answers that do a really good job of simulating what a person who knows the topic would say. But details are wrong everywhere, often in ways that completely change the relevant conclusion.

[DBNO]

I definitely agree that ChatGPT can be incorrect. I’ve seen that myself. In my experience, though, it’s more often right than wrong.

So when you say “in nearly every question on complex topics", I’m curious what specific examples you’re seeing.

Would you be open to sharing a concrete example?

Specifically: the question you asked, the part of the answer you know is wrong, and what the correct answer should be.

I have a hypothesis (not a claim) that some of these failures you are seeing might be prompt-sensitive, and I’d be curious to try it as a small experiment if you’re willing.

[avalys]

In one example, AWS has two options for automatic deletion of objects in S3 buckets that are versioned.

"Expire current versions" means that the object will be automatically deleted after some period.

"Permanently delete non-current versions" means that old revisions will be permanently removed after some period.

I asked ChatGPT for advice on configuring a bucket. Within a long list of other instructions, it said "Expire noncurrent versions after X days". In this case, such a setting does not exist, and the very similar "expire current versions" is exactly the wrong behavior. "Permanently delete noncurrent versions" is the option needed.

The prompt I used has other information in it that I don't want to share.

[Jarwain]

I don't think that LLM's do a significantly worse job than the average human professional. People get details wrong all the time, too.

[ipaddr]

LLM give false information often. The ability for you to catch incorrect facts is limited by your knowledge and ability and desire to do independent research.

LLMs are accurate with everything you don't know but are factually incorrect with things you are an expert in is a common comment for a reason.

[pgwhalen]

As I used LLMs more and more for fact type queries, my realization is that while they give false information sometimes, individual humans also give false information sometimes, even purported subject matter experts. It just turns out that you don’t actually need perfectly true information most of the time to get through life.

[simianwords]

No they don’t give false information often.

[ziml77]

They do. To the point where I'm getting absolutely furious at work at the number of times shit's gotten fucked up and when I ask about how it went wrong the response starts with "ChatGPT said"

[ipaddr]

Do you double check every fact or are you relying on yourself being an expert on the topics you ask an llm? If you are an expert on a topic you probably aren't asking ab llm anyhow.

It reminds me of someone who reads a newspaper article about a topic they know and say its most incorrect but then reading the rest of the paper and accepting those articles as fact.

[tempest_]

Gell-Mann Amnesia

[mythrwy]

"Often" is relative but they do give false information. Perhaps of greater concern is their confirmation bias.

That being said, I do agree with your general point. These tools are useful for exploring topics and answers, we just need to stay realistic about the current accuracy and bias (eager to agree).

[mythrwy]

I just asked chatGPT.

"do llms give wrong information often?"

"Yes. Large language models produce incorrect information at a non-trivial rate, and the rate is highly task-dependent."

But wait, it could be lying and they actually don't give false information often! But if that were the case, it would then verify they give false information at a non trivial rate because I don't ask it that much stuff.

[tempest_]

I have them make up stuff constantly for smaller rust libraries that are newish or dont get a lot of use.

[kundan_s__r]

Whether or not Hallucination “happens often” depends heavily on the task domain and how you define correctness. In a simple conversational question about general knowledge, an LLM might be right more often than not — but in complex domains like cloud config, compliance, law, or system design, even a single confidently wrong answer can be catastrophic.

The real risk isn’t frequency averaged across all use cases — it’s impact when it does occur. That’s why confidence alone isn’t a good proxy: models inherently generate fluent text whether they know the right answer or not.

A better way to think about it is: Does this output satisfy the contract you intended for your use case? If not, it’s unfit for production regardless of overall accuracy rates.

[travisgriggs]

I have this same reaction.

But I also have to honestly ask myself “aren’t humans also prone to make stuff up” when they feel they need to have an answer, but don’t really?

And yet despite admitting that humans hallucinate and make failures too, I remain uncomfortable with ultimate trust in LLMs.

Perhaps, while LLMs simulate authority well, there is an uncanny valley effect in trusting them, because some of the other aspect of interacting with an authority person are “off”.

[rconti]

It can be helpful, but also untrustworthy.

My mother-in-law has been struggling with some health challenges the past couple of months. My wife (her daughter) works in the medical field and has been a great advocate for her mother. This whole time I've also been peppering ChatGPT with questions, and in turn I discuss matters with my wife based on this.

I think it was generally correct in a lot of its assertions, but as time goes on and the situation does it improve, I occasionally revisit my chat and update it with the latest results and findings, and it keeps insisting we're at a turning point and this is exactly what we should expect to be happening.

6 weeks ago, I think its advice was generally spot on, but today it's just sounding more tone-deaf and optimistic. I'd hate to be _relying_ on this as my only source of advice and information.

[codexjourneys]

Totally agree, it can be a bit of an echo chamber. I had an infection post-dental-work. Bing Chat insisted I had swollen lymph nodes from a cold that would resolve on their own, then decided I had a salivary gland infection. After a follow-up with a real-world ENT, it was (probably accurately) diagnosed as a soft-tissue infection that had completely resolved on two rounds of antibiotics. The AI never raised that possibility, whereas the ENT and dentist examined me and reached that conclusion immediately.

I do think AI is great for discussing some health things (like "how should I interpret this report or test result?"), but it's too echo chamber-y and suggestion-prone for accurate diagnosis right now.

[bwb]

Ya I wouldn't trust it for diagnosis at this point. But it can help you get pointed in the right direction so human, tests, and the scientific process can try to figure out the rest.

Doctors struggle with diagnosis as well. I have stories and I bet everyone has stories about being passed from doctor to doctor to doctor, and none of them talk to each other or work holistically.

[class3shock]

Or it's a placebo effect.

And if it didn't work out and made you worse or, god forbid, the advice caused you to get seriously injured, then what? ChatGPT won't take any responsibility.

I have so many issues with our current health system but an alternative is not an unreliable search tool that takes no responsibility for the information it provides.

[deaux]

> And if it didn't work out and made you worse or, god forbid, the advice caused you to get seriously injured, then what? ChatGPT won't take any responsibility.

Realistically in 99% of actual cases where this happens due to human medical advice, the humans too won't take any responsibility.

[class3shock]

A doctor is medically and legally responsible for the guidance they give patients. Are there cases where they give bad advice and avoid taking responsibility? Of course, as is the case with lawyers, engineers, etc., but there are standards they must meet, laws they must follow, and most importantly, consequences for not doing so.

This has zero responsibility, not some theoretical, "it may try to shirk responsibility" or "many people report it not taking responsibility", it by default takes no responsibility.

[deaux]

I care about the real world, not about theory. In theory, 99% of bad advice by doctors doesn't have any consequences for them. And that's being extremely conservative, in reality it's more like 0.01%, where an actual death can be directly attributed.

[class3shock]

In the real world 100% of bad advice from ai doesn't have any consequences for the ai companies.

[bwb]

You always have to use critical thinking, listen to your body, and get advice from trainers in the trenches. As I mentioned, I did all of those things :)

[yonaguska]

on a similar vein, I have recurring back issues due to a spinal issue. I gave the issue to ChatGpT and it gave me almost all of the exercise I had been given years ago by a chiropractor. It's nowhere near a replacement for having someone coach me through movements though.

[DANmode]

It doesn’t even have to be that well-read (although it is),

it just has to listen to your feedback more than 11 minutes per visit,

so it can have a chance at effectively steering you…

[bwb]

I'm lucky to live in Europe now, I cried the first time I went to a doctor here, he chatted with me for 45 minutes. I begged my doctor in the USA to let me book back-to-back sessions, so I could ask him questions and better understand what was going on. He said no; I only had 10 minutes, and he generally didn't have time to answer any questions or provide details. He was a good doc, but just couldn't take the time, and insurance wouldn't comp him for back to back appointments.

[DANmode]

> He was a good doc, but just couldn't take the time

Sure he could.

He would just be paid less,

and you can’t have that - doctors are very important people!

[bwb]

True

[JumpCrisscross]

> to communicate with doctors effectively

Did the doctors agree? I never thought of AI as a good patient navigator, but maybe that’s its proper role in healthcare.

[bwb]

Like anything, it is a tool; someone using WebMD badly, and someone can use it well.

I have found it helpful as I can ask ChatGPT questions, teach myself about what I am dealing with, and understand it better so I can ask my doctor questions. I still verify a lot, I still read articles on verified medical sites, etc., but it helps me do that a lot quicker, and I seem to learn quicker.

I'm sure someone can also go deep into anxiety with it as well if they approach it that way. It isn't a miracle button, but it is an AMAZING tool IME.

[atmosx]

I agree. LLMs cannot and should not replace professionals but there are huge gaps that can be filled by intro provided and the fact that you can dig deeper into any subject is huge.

This is probably a field that MistralAI could use privacy and GDPR as leverage to build LLMs around that.

[phatfish]

One of the big issues I have with LLMs that when you start a prompting session with an easy question it all goes great. It bring up points you might not have considered and appears very knowledgeable. Fact checking at this stage will show the LLM is invariably correct.

Then you start "digging deeper" on a specific sub-topic, and this is where the risk of an incorrect response grows. But it is easy to continue with the assumption the text you are getting is accurate.

This has happened so many times with the computing/programming related topics i usually prompt about, there is no way I would trust a response from an LLM on health related issues I am not already very familiar with.

Given that the LLM will give incorrect information (after lulling people with a false sense of it being accurate), who is going to be responsible for the person that makes themselves worse off by doing self diagnosis, even with a privacy focused service?

[JKCalhoun]

That's a good point—and I have probably fallen victim to it as well: the "sliding scale" of an LLM's authority.

Like you, I fact-check it (well, search the internet to see if others validate the claims/points) but I don't do so with every response.

[atmosx]

The responsibility falls always to the patient. That’s true with doctors are as well: you visit two doctors they give you different diagnosis, one tells to go for surgery, the other tells you it’s not worth the hassle. Who can decide? The patient does.

LLMs are yet another powerful tool under our belt, you know it’s hallucinating so be careful. That said, even asking specialized info about this or that medical topic can be a great thing for patients. That’s why I believe it’s a good thing to have specialized LLMs that can tailor responses on individual health situations.

The problem is the framework and the implementation end goal. IMO state owned health data is a goldmine for any social welfare system and now with AI they can make use of it in novel ways.

[bossyTeacher]

>my ability to understand health problems

How do you know that this understanding is correct? To me, epistemologically, this is not too different from gaining your health knowledge from a homeopath or gaining your physics knowledge from a Flat Earther. You are in no position to discern the validity of your "knowledge".

[bwb]

It isn't a 0 or a 1; it is a spectrum. Doctors don't understand everything, either, which is the scary thing we don't like to realize.

What it specifically helps me to understand are things like: probable outcomes, symptoms in greater detail, as well as how they manifest in patient populations, explains it as if I was a 10/15/20 year old in detail to help me understand the basics of what might be going on, similar things in possible pharma options, general response treatments and pros/cons, etc.

I'm not using this to perform self-surgery or build a belief system :), I'm just trying to learn and understand what is going on at a better level.

Hope that helps :)

[bossyTeacher]

>It isn't a 0 or a 1; it is a spectrum. Doctors don't understand everything, either,

It's not equivalent. Doctors are aware of the limits of their knowledge and the error bars around their knowledge. You and an LLM don't. There is no comparison here. It's like trying to compare a random person lost in a person versus someone lost in a forest who is used to it.

Even with an LLM, you still have to be able to ask the right questions and be able to push back where necessary. I don't think most people are able to do this especially when some of the responses which might be right are counterintuitive to them and some of the dodgy responses might seem more aligned to their worldviews.

If you want to learn, it is fine (knowing that there is a context there you likely are missing) but performing actions based on knowledge you don't have context of is dangerous. It applies to vibe coding as much as it does to your personal health. This is how you end up injecting yourself with blood from younger people believing it will make you immortal.

[bwb]

100% agree with you. That is why I said a spectrum :)

The point is, it is an amazing tool that has made a big impact on my family. But ya, that is why my post talked about the importance of critical thinking, checking with experts, etc. It isn't a button click solution.

[carlosjobim]

> You are in no position to discern the validity of your "knowledge".

He is the only one who is in that position, because he is the only person who is inside his body. He is physically and mentally a hundred percent in the position to discern the validity of the advice.

[bossyTeacher]

> He is the only one who is in that position, because he is the only person who is inside his body

Tell that to everyone who has died due to following quack medicine advice.

[carlosjobim]

How does your comment have any relevance? The commenter with back pain took a commendable, scientific approach. You are talking like everybody in the world is an idiot, and you alone have any intelligence.

If this is how you experience everyday life, then I suggest you seek out challenges in real life, where you actually encounter people who are on the same level of intelligence as you or higher, and you will learn some humility instead of dismissing everybody as crazy.

[bwb]

Well said. Thank you!

[zemvpferreira]

It's a lot easier to double-check, cross-reference, or test the validity of advice given by a gpt. It has no authority, no persuasion mechanisms, and its opinions are there in plain text ready to be picked apart. You can ask it for references and non-confrontationally challenge it on the things you're sceptical about. It generally avoids woo in my experience though it's hardly always correct in specific advice, it can definitely point you in productive directions. Which is completely different from discussing anything health with a homeopath, who at best will try to get you to avoid productive treatment and at worst poison you.

[metalliqaz]

Anything you say can and will be used against you.

[bwb]

I've been on the web since it was born. When will this happen? :)

How is this manifesting in reality?

[JKCalhoun]

You bring up an interesting point.

How is it we have come to a place in society where we second-guess everything we type? But perhaps also where we go (with our "tracking devices" in our pockets…).

I mean, obviously the internet is what changed everything. But it is like you have a megaphone strapped to your face whenever you connect to a site and make a comment.

Maybe this is not a good thing.

[isodev]

Sounds like you’re a good little product… abundant potential for shareholder value to be extracted from you and others like you. A trip to the library or a consult with a professional would’ve given you the same or better results.