Searching For Health in an AI World

We know that there are so many avenues to attain health information. And it can be overwhelming to decipher what is beneficial or a hoax.

Research shows almost 40% of consumers reported using generative artificial intelligence (AI) for health-related purposes. And these systems are prone to be misleading, flat out wrong, or simply make up information altogether (a phenomenon called ‘AI hallucination’) between 3 and 30% of the time, depending on the product.

The unfortunate and somewhat scary things are that AI hallucinations look perfectly normal. And if you’re looking for health advice, this can result in outcomes that range from being a waste of time, too dangerous to your health.

The bottom line is that this technology holds so much promise to help us live healthier lives, but we have a long way to go still before letting our guard down around it.

Do your own fact checking. If you ask it about a certain health condition, medication, or symptom, it should cite references where it got the information from.

AI Hallucinations can even create completely fraudulent medical research citations. So even when it does provide these, open the link and scan through them to confirm the outcome they talked about. And for any medical changes or concerns, always, always, check with your doctor as a guide to help you navigate this new territory of AI health.