Chatbots' bad health advice leaves no trace, warn researchers in Nature Health paper
alex_verem · x · 2026-10-15
A perspective paper in Nature Health by researchers at Binghamton University, Stanford, Texas A&M, and Indiana University examines the risks of people turning to AI chatbots for medical advice.
The core argument: when a chatbot gives bad health advice, the harm is nearly invisible—
- Conversations stay inside the AI company's platform, unseen by healthcare systems
- Users have no channel to report problems
- Outside researchers cannot measure the damage
"We're getting medical advice from these chatbots, but nobody—literally no one—is looking at this," said Kaicheng Yang, assistant professor at Binghamton's School of Computing. The authors call for transparency safeguards around AI health guidance.
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