Report: Google's AI Dispenses Inaccurate Medical Information

For many people, the first source they check for medical information is a doctor who never attended medical school: Dr. Google. In a 2024 article, Brown University Health Urgent Care medical director Olivier M. Gherardi advised people doing so to employ caution. “I can’t stop you from searching for medical information online, but maybe I can help guide you towards better quality information,” Gherardi wrote.

As Google’s online search uses AI more and more, what effect does that have on the information it’s returning to people researching their own symptoms? A recently-concluded investigation at The Guardian has some unnerving answers.

The Guardian‘s health editor, Andrew Gregory, points to several cases where Google’s AI-powered advice was the opposite of what medical experts would recommend. Most alarmingly, this included telling people who are living with pancreatic cancer to stay away from food that is high in fat. As Gregory writes, doing so “may increase the risk of patients dying from the disease.”

Anna Jewell of the nonprofit group Pancreatic Cancer UK told The Guardian, “[I]f someone followed what the search result told them then they might not take in enough calories, struggle to put on weight, and be unable to tolerate either chemotherapy or potentially life-saving surgery.”

A Decades-Old Medicine Could Curb Binge Drinking

Naltrexone could be used to reduce heavy alcohol consumption, according to a new study

Alarming dietary advice for pancreatic cancer patients is not the only area where The Guardian‘s investigation found AI-generated medical advice that could make people sicker. The article also points to issues with AI-generated advice about both liver function tests and tests for vaginal cancers. This might not be so worrying if there wasn’t already a history of people using online search results as valid medical advice — but that’s the world we’re currently living in.

Meet your guide

Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…