More and more people are turning to AI chatbots for medical advice, but experts warn there are risks
In recent years, generative AI such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini have become more prevalent in our daily lives, and some people say they regularly ask chat AIs various questions. A new study has found that many people ask chat AIs medical-related questions, but experts are warning that this comes with risks.
Use of ChatGPT to obtain health information in Australia, 2024: insights from a nationally representative survey - Ayre - 2025 - Medical Journal of Australia - Wiley Online Library
More people are asking generative AI questions about their health. But the wrong answer can be risky
https://theconversation.com/more-people-are-asking-generative-ai-questions-about-their-health-but-the-wrong-answer-can-be-risky-249383
Although generative AI has already become part of people’s daily lives, it is still an unstable technology that has only just emerged, and there is a problem with “ hallucination,” where the technology outputs false information as if it were true.
So, in June 2024, Julie Ayre, a postdoctoral researcher at the Health Literacy Lab at the University of Sydney in Australia, and her research team conducted a survey of more than 2,000 Australians asking them whether they had used ChatGPT to ask health-related questions.
The survey found that one in ten respondents (approximately 9.9%) will ask ChatGPT questions about health in the first half of 2024. When respondents were asked to rate how much they trust ChatGPT, the result was 3.1 out of 5, indicating that respondents trust ChatGPT to a certain extent. Furthermore, among respondents who have not yet asked ChatGPT health-related questions, 39% said they are considering using ChatGPT within the next six months.
The research team's survey found that people who used ChatGPT to ask questions about health issues tended to have low health literacy, were born in a non-English-speaking country, and spoke a language other than English at home. These results suggest that ChatGPT is a promising option for people who find it difficult to access health information in the form they are accustomed to in Australia.
Common health-related reasons respondents used ChatGPT included:
Learning about health conditions (48%)
- Finding out the meaning of symptoms (37%)
Asking what you should do (36%)
・Understanding medical terminology (35%)
More than 60% of respondents who used ChatGPT asked questions that would normally require clinical advice. The research team points out that asking such specialized questions on ChatGPT is risky and that ChatGPT's answers are not a substitute for clinical advice.
In this survey, we only asked about ChatGPT, but if we expand the scope to Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, etc., the percentage of people who use AI to look up health information will increase even more. The study found that people with cultures and languages other than English-speaking tend to use AI, so it is possible that using a language other than English is a barrier to obtaining health information.
Indeed, generative AI offers an important opportunity to access health information for people who may not have access to it in their country or culture. In fact, a 2023 study showed that generative AI tools were less accurate on complex health topics, but could communicate general health information in simpler language. This is a clear advantage, as much health information is too complex and difficult to read for the general public.
On the other hand, when asking AI to diagnose illnesses or whether they should visit a hospital, problems that can only be identified by directly examining the patient are easily overlooked, increasing the risk to the patient. In fact, there have been reported cases where a patient who had been told in the past to 'visit a hospital the next time symptoms appear' asked ChatGPT for advice when the second symptom appeared, and as a result, refrained from visiting a hospital until the third symptom appeared.
The research team said, 'Many Australian health organisations are developing AI policies, but most of these focus on how health services and staff will interact with AI. There is an urgent need for us to equip our community with AI health literacy skills. This need will increase as more people use AI tools for their health and will change as AI tools evolve.'
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