ChatGPT Health is a marketplace, guess who is the product? • Hacker News Board

Re: ChatGPT Health is a marketplace, guess who is the product?

#141

Post by avalys » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

simianwords wrote: post #76

jmyeet wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of comment scares me because it's an example of people substituring professional advice for an LLM where LLMs are known to hallucinate or otherwise simply make stuff up. I see this all the time when I write queries and get the annoying Gemini AI snippet on a subject I know about and often I'll see the AI make provably and objectively false statements.

You are exaggerating. LLMs simply don’t hallucinate all that often, especially ChatGPT. I really hate comments such as yours because anyone who has used ChatGPT in these contexts would know that it is pretty accurate and safe. People also can generally be trusted to identify good from bad advice. They are smart like that. We should be encouraging thoughtful ChatGPT use instead of showing fake concern at each opportun…

All we can do is share anecdotes here, but I have found ChatGPT to be confidently incorrect about important details in nearly every question I ask about a complex topic.

Legal questions, question about AWS services, products I want to buy, the history a specific field, so many things.

It gives answers that do a really good job of simulating what a person who knows the topic would say. But details are wrong everywhere, often in ways that completely change the relevant conclusion.

Re: ChatGPT Health is a marketplace, guess who is the product?

#142

Post by zdragnar » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

alright2565 wrote: post #111

zdragnar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ostensibly, the Affordable Care Act was supposed to reduce the average family's premiums by $2,500 a year. When that didn't happen, the story changed to that number being how much more premiums would have risen. Insurance premiums have only gone up as far as I can remember, though there's a ton of variables at play here. Inflation is an obvious one, plus continual introduction of more and more costly treatments- biol…

The individual mandate part of the ACA was the part designed to reduce premiums. You need healthy participants in any health insurance scheme to subsidize unhealthy people. That was eliminated by a Republican bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Yes, and that was years after the ACA took full effect and the rates did not decrease.

Most people get insurance through their employer, and most employer plans (at medium to large companies) are self funded by the company and merely administered by insurance companies.

That means the healthy participants had no effect on those plans whatsoever. Even at peak, the individual mandate had only cut the number of uninsured by half, and the effect on rates was negligible.

Re: ChatGPT Health is a marketplace, guess who is the product?

#143

Post by ramoz » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

seydor wrote: post #4

ChatGPT mostly refuses to talk health issues , while i have found Gemini is reasonably cooperative when asking for things like symptoms and treatments . This makes me not wanting to try out their new offering.

Ive had fairly complex health issues and have never had issues with ChatGPT - other than I worry about the vast majority people in my scenario who do not understand AI.

AI can enable very misleading analysis and misinformation when a patient drives the conversation a certain way. Something I've observed in the community I'm a part of.

Not talking about acid reflux or back pain.

Re: ChatGPT Health is a marketplace, guess who is the product?

#144

Post by Workaccount2 » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #140

Workaccount2 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious retort to this is: "If I focused on my health, ate clean and exercised daily, why should I also be subsidizing Billy "video-games-are-my-exercise" fatass's chronic health conditions?" This is why there is a hyperfixation on shifting blame away from (failing) individuals. The logic breaks when Billy has to admit he just hates exercising. And yes, before you comment, I know "maybe Billy has (condition outsi…

The entire purpose of health insurance is spreading risk across a wide and diverse risk pool. > why should I also be subsidizing Billy "video-games-are-my-exercise" fatass's chronic health conditions?" Nobody is asking you to: enrolling in insurance is a choice in the USA. Also, replace "chronic health conditions" with "unavoidable inherited genetic risk factors". We don't want Billy to be screwed for life just becau…

The most cataclysmic thing that could happen to healthcare would be chronically healthy individuals creating their own health insurance.

Re: ChatGPT Health is a marketplace, guess who is the product?

#145

Post by ramoz » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

SecretDreams wrote: post #27

LLMs for medical info are good, but they're easily abuseable. I've got a friend who is an anxious mom. They use gpt/Gemini to "confirm" all of their suspicions and justify far more doctor/medical visits than is at all reasonable, while also getting access to more recurring antibiotics than is reasonable. LLMs are basically giving them the gun powder to waste the doctor's time and slam an already stressed medical syst…

Yea, I'm in a particular health community. A lot of anxious individuals, for good reason, end up posting a lot of nonsense they derived from self-influenced chatgpt conversations.

That said, when used as a tool you have power over - ChatGPT has also freed up some of my own anxiety. I've learned a ton thanks to ChatGPT as well. It's often been more helpful than the doctors and offers itself as an always-available counsel.

Re: ChatGPT Health is a marketplace, guess who is the product?

#146

Post by raw_anon_1111 » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

well_ackshually wrote: post #126

simianwords wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do corporations use my google searches as data to hire me?

Do you have any proof they don't? Do you have any proof the "AI System" that they use to filter out candidates doesn't "accidentally" access data ? Are you willing to bet that Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, won't sell access to that information? Also, in some cases: they absolutely do. Try to get hired in Palantir and see how much they know about your browsing history. Anything related to national security or requi…

As if any company that did that is a company I would want to work for.

For instance back when I was interviewing at startups and other companies where I was going to be a strategic hire, I would casually mention how much I enjoyed spending time on my hobbies and with my family on the weekend so companies wouldn’t even extend an offer if they wanted someone “passionate” who would work 60 hours a week and be on call.

Re: ChatGPT Health is a marketplace, guess who is the product?

#147

Post by cm2012 » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:55 PM UTC

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #58

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also list plenty of horror stories where people went to medical professionals and got screwed over. There is this myth that people can go to doctors and get perfect attention and treatment. Reality is far from that

There’s the concept of “personal advocacy” when receiving healthcare. Unfortunately, you’ll only get the best outcomes if you continually seek out treatment with diligence and patience. But framing it as a “myth [of] perfect attention and treatment” sounds a bit like delegitimizing the entire healthcare industry in a way that makes me raise my eyebrow.

Id say the Healthcare industry works hard but is probably working at like 20% of their possible productivity due to systemic issues.

Re: ChatGPT Health is a marketplace, guess who is the product?

#148

Post by smsm42 » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC

simianwords wrote: post #85

Flatterer3544 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how would you know what they base their hiring upon? You would just get a generic automated response.. You would not be privy to their internal processes, and thusfar not be able to prove wrong doing. You would just have to hope for a new Snowden and that the found wrongdoings would actually be punished this time.

Do corporations use my google searches as data to hire me?

Probably not directly, that would be too vulnerable. But they could hire a background check company, that could pay a data aggregator to check if you searched for some forbidden words, and then feed the results into a threat model...

Re: ChatGPT Health is a marketplace, guess who is the product?

#149

Post by cm2012 » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

DudeOpotomus wrote: post #78

azan_ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please read my comment again. If you lived with chronic pain that multiple doctors failed to correctly diagnose and ChatGPT actually suggested correct diagnosis then you wouldn’t call it just perceived ease, but something that made your life much, much better. I’m doctor and I’m all for empowering patients (as long as they consult ChatGPT output with actual doctors). It’s very easy to criticize people resorting to ll…

With all due respect, you are thinking like a good person, a human being who spent decades of their life to learn how to care for people. You took a pledge to Do-no-Harm. You are looking at these tools as tools. The owners and future owners of said data do not care about anything other than profits and exploitation. They do not care about the patient, the doctor let alone the consequences of their doings. They took a…

I'll take a mysterious and amorphous future risk of privacy violations any day over current chronic pain.

Re: ChatGPT Health is a marketplace, guess who is the product?

#150

Post by rconti » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:59 PM UTC

bwb wrote: post #12

ChatGPT has made a material difference in my ability to understand health problems, test results, and to communicate with doctors effectively. My wife and I were talking last night about how helpful it was in 2025. I hope that it continues to be good at this. I want regulators to keep an eye on this and make smart laws. I don't want it to go away, as its value is massive in my life. (One example, if you are curious:…

It can be helpful, but also untrustworthy.

My mother-in-law has been struggling with some health challenges the past couple of months. My wife (her daughter) works in the medical field and has been a great advocate for her mother. This whole time I've also been peppering ChatGPT with questions, and in turn I discuss matters with my wife based on this.

I think it was generally correct in a lot of its assertions, but as time goes on and the situation does it improve, I occasionally revisit my chat and update it with the latest results and findings, and it keeps insisting we're at a turning point and this is exactly what we should expect to be happening.

6 weeks ago, I think its advice was generally spot on, but today it's just sounding more tone-deaf and optimistic. I'd hate to be _relying_ on this as my only source of advice and information.