{"id":240552,"date":"2026-01-12T05:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T05:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/240552\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T05:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T05:12:08","slug":"elon-musk-asked-people-to-upload-their-medical-data-to-x-so-his-ai-company-could-learn-to-interpret-mris-and-ct-scans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/240552\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk asked people to upload their medical data to X so his AI company could learn to interpret MRIs and CT scans"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Elon Musk\u2019s world, AI is the new MD. The X<\/a> owner is encouraging users to upload their medical test results\u2014such as CT and bone scans\u2014to the platform so that Grok, X\u2019s artificial intelligence chatbot, can learn how to interpret them efficiently.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s previously said this information will be used to train X\u2019s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok on how to interpret them efficiently.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Elon Musk reposted a video on X<\/a> of himself talking about uploading medical data to Grok, saying: \u201cTry it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can upload your X-rays or MRI images to Grok and it will give you a medical diagnosis,\u201d Musk said in the video, which was uploaded in June. \u201cI have seen cases where it\u2019s actually better than what doctors tell you.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Musk said medical images uploaded to Grok would be used to train the bot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is still early stage, but it is already quite accurate and will become extremely good,\u201d Musk wrote on X<\/a>. \u201cLet us know where Grok gets it right or needs work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk also claimed in his response Grok saved a man in Norway by diagnosing a problem his doctors failed to notice. The X owner was willing to upload his own medical information to his bot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did an MRI recently and submitted it to Grok,\u201d Musk said in an episode<\/a> of the Moonshots with Peter Diamandis podcast released on Tuesday. \u201cNone of the doctors nor Grok found anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk did not disclose in the podcast why he received an MRI. XAI, which owns X, told Fortune in a statement: \u201cLegacy Media Lies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grok is facing some competition in the AI health space. This week OpenAI launched ChatGPT Health<\/a>, an experience within the bot feature that allows users to securely connect medical records and wellness apps like MyFitnessPal and Apple<\/a> Health. The company said it would not train the models using personal medical information.<\/p>\n

AI chatbots have become a ubiquitous source of medical information for people. OpenAI reported this week 40 million people seek health information<\/a> from the model, 55% of which used to bot to look up or better understand symptoms.<\/p>\n

Dr. Grok will see you now<\/p>\n

So far, Grok\u2019s ability to detect medical abnormalities have been mixed. The AI successfully analyzed blood test results<\/a> and identified breast cancer<\/a>, some users claimed. But it also grossly misinterpreted other pieces of information, according to physicians who responded to some of Musk\u2019s about Grok\u2019s ability to interpret medical information. In one instance, Grok mistook a \u201ctextbook case<\/a>\u201d of tuberculosis for a herniated disk or spinal stenosis. In another, the bot mistook a mammogram<\/a> of a benign breast cyst for an image of testicles.<\/p>\n

A May 2025 study<\/a> found that while all AI models have limitations in processing and predicting medical outcomes, Grok was the most effectively compared to Google\u2019s Gemini and ChatGPT-4o when determining the presence of pathologies in 35,711 slices of brain MRI.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know they have the technical capability,\u201d Dr. Laura Heacock<\/a>, associate professor at the New York University Langone Health Department of Radiology, wrote on X<\/a>. \u201cWhether or not they want to put in the time, data and [graphics processing units] to include medical imaging is up to them. For now, non-generative AI methods continue to outperform in medical imaging.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problems with Dr. Grok<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s lofty goal of training his AI to make medical diagnoses is also a risky one, experts said. While AI has increasingly been used as a means to make complicated science more accessible<\/a> and create assistive technologies<\/a>, teaching Grok to use data from a social media platform presents concerns about both Grok\u2019s accuracy and user privacy.<\/p>\n

Ryan Tarzy, CEO of health technology firm Avandra Imaging, said in an interview with Fast Company<\/a> asking users to directly input data, rather than source it from secure databases with de-identified patient data, is Musk\u2019s way of trying to accelerate Grok\u2019s development. Also, the information comes from a limited sample of whoever is willing to upload their images and tests\u2014meaning the AI is not gathering data from sources representative of the broader and more diverse medical landscape.<\/p>\n

Medical information shared on social media isn\u2019t bound by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the federal law that protects patients\u2019 private information from being shared without their consent. That means there\u2019s less control over where the information goes after a user chooses to share it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis approach has myriad risks, including the accidental sharing of patient identities,\u201d Tarzy said. \u201cPersonal health information is \u2018burned in\u2019 too many images, such as CT scans, and would inevitably be released in this plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The privacy dangers Grok may present aren\u2019t fully known because X may have privacy protections not known by the public, according to Matthew McCoy, assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania. He said users share medical information at their own risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an individual user, would I feel comfortable contributing health data?\u201d he previously told the New York Times<\/a>. \u201cAbsolutely not.\u201d<\/p>\n

A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com<\/a> on Nov. 20, 2024.<\/p>\n

More on AI and health:<\/p>\n

OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health in a push to become a hub for personal health data<\/a><\/p>\n

OpenAI suggests ChatGPT play doctor<\/a> as millions of Americans face spiking insurance costs: \u2018In the U.S., ChatGPT has become an important ally\u2019<\/p>\n

As Utah gives the AI power to prescribe some drugs, physicians warn of patient risks<\/p>\n

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Elon Musk\u2019s world, AI is the new MD. The X owner is encouraging users to upload their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[605,4069,103,397,396,61,60,55651,121875,84669],"class_list":{"0":"post-240552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-elon-musk","9":"tag-grok","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-care","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-medical-diagnosis","16":"tag-medical-images","17":"tag-medical-information"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}