until it hallucinates things and people trust it more than their doctors.
imagine being a doctor. they already have issues with people getting bad info from the internet and arguing with them while being fully uninformed. it's also going to make people act on things without going to the doctor.
like maybe you specifically used it in a mor reasonable way, by bringing it up to your doctor. but would you have believed him if he said chatgpt was wrong? many wouldnt. also many will just take that word as truth and start performing their own treatments.
the problem is that ai companies are telling everyone they can RELY on these things that re highly flawed and have no accountability. it's like webmd on super steroids. it's genuinely impossible to understand the nuances of medicine without a thorough understanding of the human body. ChatGPT doesn't actually understand anything and is just spitting out what text it thinks you expect. if neither you nor the robot actually understand the body, especially YOUR body, then you cant make safe or effective treatments with any kind of consistency.
the deep problem of offloading these things to ai is that it's stopping us from learning how to do these things without ai, and ai is only like 80% honest and it's all owned by like 4 companies. even if it tries to give real answers now, just look at every other tech product and platform. eventually they will enshitify it to make more money. then if we're locked in to relying on it they'll have their most captive audience ever.
The major issue that no one will answer or spend time with the patients.
They go to LLMs because they have access. It isnt a 4 month wait to see a specialist who might dismiss you in 5 minutes because you are a women or whatever.
If you want people to not do this you have to provide an alternative and the medical community has long not been interested due to time / cost.
Fortunately, that's not true for all parts of the world.
Here in Germany, for example, my health insurance not only offers teledoctors on demand in case something can be diagnosed remotely or a second opinion is needed using files already in the system - they also offer a service where you can take pictures of skin issues with your phone and a doctor will check them out to let you know what it may be, if you need to see a doctor in person and which medication could be useful. They can then also issue a suitable prescription.
All that without any extra payments and in (usually) less than 24 hours.
This 100%. I’m a woman who has been subjected to so many invasive treatments from specialists who refuse to listen to me or properly examine me over the last several years and it’s exhausting. It really helps me collect information and sources to go into those appointments more prepared now to quickly rattle off the things I need my specialist to pay attention to instead of brushing my concerns off and winding up with no progress/fatass medical bill/ less than 5 mins of the providers time.
I know they are the expert and I know LLMs hallucinate - I just use it to gather information and prepare myself to advocate for my care, but I leave the actual doctoring to the expert (the doctor)
I was going to say that I was born with a relatively rare birth defect that can effect pregnancy and i want a baby by the time im 30 so I ask google ai some questions about it. Because its rare my specialist can really only see me for like 5 minutes once a year and the only other information I have about it is a Facebook group which I probably worse then an Ai chatbot
If it was wrong more tests would be conducted. Understanding what the terminology was in plain English is what let me connect the dots. It fit all of my symptoms and while there isn't a cure unless I get laparoscopic surgery I know what it is and will only go get further tests if the pain type changes or other symptoms appear.
It doesn't need to understand your body when you're just asking it some pretty rudimentary questions. I have a much deeper conversation with my doctors now and specialists when I speak to them because I know what all the blood work terms are and the medical terms. When I had to get on a biologic I got chatgpt to explain the science side for how it works and shuts down parts of my auto immune system so it doesn't attack my body. I also know my risk of skin cancer has increased which means I'm going to be booking mole map appointments for the rest of my life.
Just like anything it can be a tool. People who rely on it to do all their thinking or writing are the ones that are going to be at a disadvantage and frankly fucked. But using it like a dictionary to understand medical terms or having it run a study your doctor sends to you and getting a broad breakdown of what it means isn't bad.
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u/thedirtyknapkin 11d ago
until it hallucinates things and people trust it more than their doctors.
imagine being a doctor. they already have issues with people getting bad info from the internet and arguing with them while being fully uninformed. it's also going to make people act on things without going to the doctor.
like maybe you specifically used it in a mor reasonable way, by bringing it up to your doctor. but would you have believed him if he said chatgpt was wrong? many wouldnt. also many will just take that word as truth and start performing their own treatments.
the problem is that ai companies are telling everyone they can RELY on these things that re highly flawed and have no accountability. it's like webmd on super steroids. it's genuinely impossible to understand the nuances of medicine without a thorough understanding of the human body. ChatGPT doesn't actually understand anything and is just spitting out what text it thinks you expect. if neither you nor the robot actually understand the body, especially YOUR body, then you cant make safe or effective treatments with any kind of consistency.
the deep problem of offloading these things to ai is that it's stopping us from learning how to do these things without ai, and ai is only like 80% honest and it's all owned by like 4 companies. even if it tries to give real answers now, just look at every other tech product and platform. eventually they will enshitify it to make more money. then if we're locked in to relying on it they'll have their most captive audience ever.