Study finds nearly half of AI chatbot medical advice is inaccurate or fabricated
By
Vladimir Hedrih
A second-rack bagel that's nearly first-rack. Tasty stuff.
Summary
A new study published in BMJ Open audited AI chatbot responses to health and medical questions prone to misinformation. Researchers tested chatbots like ChatGPT and Grok with 10 questions across five categories (cancer, vaccines, stem cells, nutrition, athletic performance) and found that 49.6% of responses were problematic — 30% somewhat problematic and 19.6% highly problematic. The chatbots frequently provided incorrect health information, fabricated scientific references, and failed to admit when they didn't know the answer.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledAn audit of chatbot responses in health and medical fields prone to misinformation found that 49.6% of responses were problematic.
Specifically, 30% of responses were somewhat problematic, and 19.6% were highly problematic.
The chatbots frequently provided incorrect health information, faked scientific references, and refused to admit ignorance.
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