\n When your side hurts or your child\u2019s big toe is throbbing and you don\u2019t know why \u2013 or what to do about it \u2013 do you call a doctor, or do you ask your favorite AI for a diagnosis and plan of action?\n <\/p>\n
\n The technology has been widely available for only a few years, but many Americans are increasingly choosing AI to address their health concerns. A March pol\ufeffl from health policy organization KFF<\/a> found that 1 in 3 American adults say they have consulted AI about their health. The most widely used AI in the US, ChatGPT, is used by 44% of US adults<\/a>, and creator OpenAI says that more than 300 million people around the world turn to it each week to answer health questions.\n <\/p>\n \n AI programs can provide general information on nearly any topic, but several companies have also made it easier for Americans to upload medical records and wearable device data so the program can offer health information based on things like doctor\u2019s notes, lab results, the number of steps you take, the food you eat and the amount of sleep you get.\n <\/p>\n \n OpenAI announced<\/a> last week that it was launching more broadly to US users so people could upload their medical records and use ChatGPT to better understand the information, track what\u2019s changed in their health and have more informed conversations about their personal health \u2013 even offering things like recipes for people who have specific concerns, such as low iron levels.\n <\/p>\n \n Most respondents in the KFF poll said they had privacy concerns over sharing such sensitive data with AI companies, but 41% of those who had asked health questions said they uploaded their personal medical information.\n <\/p>\n \n Some experts say that uploading sensitive medical records should be a personal choice and that they trust the companies\u2019 promises to keep health records private. But many others are more cautious, suggesting skepticism when trusting your health to AI.\n <\/p>\n \n AI passed a medical licensing exam<\/a>, and OpenAI said last week that the latest version of ChatGPT has been evaluated by hundreds of clinicians and that its models \u201care now capable of reasoning at or better than the level of human clinicians.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n AI is still not perfect, however. It has biases<\/a> about race and gender that influence its advice. It\u2019s essentially built to please the user, <\/a>so it will sound polite and convincing, even when it\u2019s wrong. In some cases, it may even miss a high-risk emergency and tell someone to stay home rather than get help right away, and that can be dangerous.\n <\/p>\n \n Hospitals and doctors\u2019 offices must follow codes of ethics and rules that protect sensitive patient health information and protect privacy, but AI is not bound by<\/a> the same strict federal rules. The US has no comprehensive federal privacy law<\/a>, although AI company policies do make several privacy promises.\n <\/p>\n \n Anthropic, which makes Claude for Healthcare<\/a>; Microsoft, which makes Copilot Health<\/a>; Perplexity<\/a>; and OpenAI<\/a> all say they offer privacy and secure interactions with your health data. Conversations are encrypted, and the companies say they don\u2019t use your data to train their models or target their ads to you. The companies also promise that you can disconnect your medical records and Apple Health information at any time; OpenAI says it will delete data from its system within 30 days.\n <\/p>\n \n Promises like those gave Dr. Bob Wachter enough confidence to upload his health data<\/a> to ChatGPT Health. Wachter, chair of the Department of Medicine<\/a> at the University of California, San Francisco, says companies have no business obligation to make so many promises of privacy, and they\u2019ve got a lot on the line if they screw it up.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI believe them because I think they\u2019ve got a strong business interest in keeping their word,\u201d said Wachter, who is also author of \u201cA Giant Leap: How AI is Transforming Healthcare and What that Means for Our Future<\/a>.\u201d \u201cBut the risk is not zero; it\u2019s just very small, and you really need to decide whether it\u2019s worth it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n For people with privacy concerns, Wachter notes that some companies that provide electronic medical records like Epic, the maker of MyChart, offer their own AI products. But it may take a few years before every health system uses it.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cFor now, if you want to ask a question regarding your health like \u2018what\u2019s the best treatment for my my arthritis?\u2019 or \u2018I have a new headache today. What does it mean?\u2019 you\u2019re going to get a better answer if you\u2019re using an advanced AI model and it knows a lot about your past history,\u201d Wachter said. To him, \u201cit felt like the benefits outweigh the risk.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Other scholars are more skeptical.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI would never turn my data over to a private entity without more assurance of confidentiality or understanding of how they\u2019re going to protect against leaks and more clarity about what happens if there is a hack or an accidental leak,\u201d said Dr. Art Caplan, a bioethicist<\/a> who is professor emeritus and past head of the Division of Medical Ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.\n <\/p>\n \n Without better laws regulating AI<\/a> and health data, he said, that data is vulnerable to being used in ways you don\u2019t intend. He points to the example of 23andMe, the direct-to-consumer genetic testing company that experienced a massive data breach in 2023, exposing personal and genetic and health data of nearly 7 million customers.\n <\/p>\n \n When the company filed for bankruptcy in 2025, it sold the genetic data<\/a> of 15 million customers to a nonprofit created by its founder, but there was nothing legally stopping it from selling that data to a company that could mine it for information or use it for profit.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe legal and ethical infrastructure to handle all of this information and to handle personal and sensitive information, that just doesn\u2019t exist yet,\u201d Caplan said.\n <\/p>\n \n Dr. Girish Nadkarni, a nephrologist at Mount Sinai who studies the use of AI in health, said that as with anything with AI, users should \u201cverify, then trust.\u201d He would like to see independent verification that the companies do not train on patient data, not just a policy that says so.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cDon\u2019t just blindly trust,\u201d said Nadkarni, system chief of the Division of Data-Driven and Digital Medicine and co-director of the Mount Sinai Clinical Intelligence Center<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n One hesitation scholars say they have about using AI for health is that its answers may sound persuasive even when it\u2019s giving bad advice. Programs can still hallucinate and make mistakes.\n <\/p>\n \n AI companies offer warnings against using their products to make life or death decisions, but people don\u2019t always heed them.\n <\/p>\n \n The March KFF poll found that 41% of people surveyed said they used AI to be better informed when they see their doctor, but quick and immediate advice is why most people used it. And about 1 in 5 said they used AI because they didn\u2019t have a doctor or just couldn\u2019t afford an appointment. As of 2023, an estimated 100 million Americans<\/a> \u2013 nearly a third of the country \u2013 are what\u2019s considered \u201cmedically disenfranchised,\u201d meaning they can\u2019t reach a primary care doctor because too few practice in their community.\n <\/p>\n \n Some studies of earlier versions of AI programs have found problematic health advice. A 2023 study published in the journal JAMA Oncology<\/a> found that an older version of ChatGPT provided inappropriate recommendations for cancer treatment in over one-third of case prompts the researchers created. And unlike when patients ask a question in Google and get several responses, the AI gives just one answer, and the certainty of the program made it difficult to detect incorrect recommendations, the study authors said.\n <\/p>\n