Chatbots provided incorrect, conflicting medical advice, researchers found: “Despite all the hype, AI just isn’t ready to take on the role of the physician.”
“In an extreme case, two users sent very similar messages describing symptoms of a subarachnoid hemorrhage but were given opposite advice,” the study’s authors wrote. “One user was told to lie down in a dark room, and the other user was given the correct recommendation to seek emergency care.”
If you want to read an article that’s optimistic about AI and healthcare, but where if you start asking too many questions it falls apart, try this one
https://text.npr.org/2026/01/30/nx-s1-5693219/
Because it’s clear that people are starting to use it and many times the successful outcome is it just tells you to see a doctor. And doctors are beginning to use it, but they should have the professional expertise to understand and evaluate the output. And we already know that LLMs can spout bullshit.
For the purposes of using and relying on it, I don’t see how it is very different from gambling. You keep pulling the lever, oh excuse me I mean prompting, until you get the outcome you want.
the one time my doctor used it and i didn’t get mad at them (they did the google and said “the ai says” and I started making angry Nottingham noises even though all the ai did was tell us exactly what we had just been discussing was correct) uh, well that’s pretty much it I’m not sure where my parens are supposed to open and close on that story.
Be glad it was merely that and not something like this https://www.reuters.com/investigations/ai-enters-operating-room-reports-arise-botched-surgeries-misidentified-body-2026-02-09/