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ChatGPT Health

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321–330 of 677 posts

Re: ChatGPT Health

#321

Here’s something: my chatGPT quietly assumed I had ADHD for around 9 months, up until October 2025. I don’t suffer from ADHD. I only found out through an answer that began “As you have ADHD..” I had it stop right there, and asked it to tell me exactly where it got this information; the date, the title of the chat, the exact moment it took this data on as an attribute of mine. It was unable to specify any of it, aside…

I wonder if that's because so many people claim to have ADHD for dubious reasons, often some kind of self-diagnosis. Maybe because being "neurodivergent" is somewhat trendy, or maybe to get some amphetamines.

ChatGPT may have picked that up and give people ADHD for no good reason.

Re: ChatGPT Health

#322
post #126

I help take care of my 80-ish year old mother. ChatGPT figured out in 5 minutes the reason behind a pretty serious chronic problem that her very good doctors hadn't been able to figure out in 3 years. Her doctors came around to the possibility, tested out the hypothesis, and it was 100% right. She's doing great now (at least with that one thing). That's not to say that it's better than doctors or even that it's a goo…

Something to think about: perhaps the problem is with the duration of the appointment, and the difficulty of getting one in the first place? Elsewhere in the world, doctors can and do spend more than 12 minutes figuring out what's wrong with their patients. It's the healthcare system that's broken, and it _can_ be fixed without resorting to chatgpt. That it won't is the reality, though

GP sessions being around 20 minutes is pretty standard in North American and European countries. You can't have standard hour-long GP sessions, as it'd become impossible to make a timely appointment, no matter which system.

Re: ChatGPT Health

#323

Here’s something: my chatGPT quietly assumed I had ADHD for around 9 months, up until October 2025. I don’t suffer from ADHD. I only found out through an answer that began “As you have ADHD..” I had it stop right there, and asked it to tell me exactly where it got this information; the date, the title of the chat, the exact moment it took this data on as an attribute of mine. It was unable to specify any of it, aside…

ChatGPT used the name on my credit card, a name which isn't uncommon, and started talking about my business, XYZ, that I don't have and never claimed to.

Did some digging and there was an obscure reference to a company that folded a long time ago associated with someone who has my name.

What makes it creepier is that they have the same middle name, which isn't in my profile or on my credit card.

When I signed up for ChatGPT, not only did I turn off personalization and training on my data, I even filled out the privacy request opt-out[1] that they're required to adhere to by law in several places.

Also, given that my name isn't rare, there are unfortunately some people with unsavory histories documented online with the name. I can't wait to be confused for one of them.

[1] https://privacy.openai.com/policies/en/

Re: ChatGPT Health

#324
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General doctors aren't trained for problem solving, they're trained for memorization. The doctors that are good at problem solving aren't general doctors.

This. I wouldn't be surprised if AI was better than going to GP or many other specialists in majority of cases. And the issue is not with the doctors themselves, but the complexity of human body. Like many digestive issues can cause migraines or a ton of other problems. I am yet to see when someone is referred to gut health professional because of the migraine. And a lot of similar cases when absolutely random system…

> AI on the other hand should be pretty good at figuring out those vague issues that you would never figured out otherwise.

Not least because it almost certainly has orders of magnitude more data to work with than your average GP (who definitely doesn't have the time to keep up with reading all the papers and case studies you'd need to even approach a "full view".)

Re: ChatGPT Health

#325
post #292
post #22

I personally don’t care who has access to my health data, but I understand those who might. Either way, I’m excited for some actual innovation in the personal health field. Apple Health is more about aggregating data than actually producing actionable insights. 23andme was mostly useless. Today I have a ChatGPT project with my health history as a system prompt and it’s been very helpful. Recently I snapped a photo of…

> I personally don’t care who has access to my health data There's a reason this data is heavily regulated. It's deeply intimate and gives others enormous leverage over you. This is also why the medical industry can charge premium rates while often providing poor service. Something as simple as knowing whether you need insulin to survive might seem harmless, but it creates an asymmetric power dynamic that can be expl…

The medical industry doesn't use your medical data to overcharge for insulin. That's more a question of your financial and insurance data.

Re: ChatGPT Health

#326
post #288

Here’s something: my chatGPT quietly assumed I had ADHD for around 9 months, up until October 2025. I don’t suffer from ADHD. I only found out through an answer that began “As you have ADHD..” I had it stop right there, and asked it to tell me exactly where it got this information; the date, the title of the chat, the exact moment it took this data on as an attribute of mine. It was unable to specify any of it, aside…

This actually highlights a big privacy problem with health AI. Say I’m interested in some condition and want to know more about it so I ask a chatbot about it. It decides “asking for a friend” means I actually have that condition and then silent passes that information on data brokers. Once it’s in the broker network it’s truth. We lack the proper infrastructure for to control our own personal data. Hell, I bet there…

Who is "we"? Americans?

Re: ChatGPT Health

#327
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually you maybe do. I am extremely privacy conscious; so i’m on your side on this one but health data is a bit different from handing over all your email and purchase information to google — in that scenario the danger is that the political or religious or whatever attributes i may have could be exposed to a future regime who considers what is acceptable today to no longer be so, uses them to profile and … whateve…

Depends on the data - if you had genetic data they might run PGS and infer that even though you are healthy now, your genes might predispose you to something bad and deny insurance based on that. If you truly do not see dangers of health data access remember that they could genotype you even when you came just for ordinary bloodwork.

Isn't it more productive to regulate health insurance and make health a protected attribute of a person like disability etc?

Re: ChatGPT Health

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can also help you in not getting a job because your health data says you'll be sick in 6 months.

How do you think that can happen realistically? Like seriously can you explain clearly how the data from ChatGPT gets to your employer?

It doesn't have to get to your employer, it just has to get to the enormous industry of grey-market data brokers who will supply the information to a third-party who will supply that information to a third-party who perform recruitment-based analytics which your employer (or their contracted recruitment firm) uses. Employers already use demographic data to bias their decisions all the time. If your issue is "There's no way conversations with ChatGPT would escape the interface in the first place," are you... familiar with Web 2.0?

Edit: Literally on the HN front page right now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46528353

Re: ChatGPT Health

#330

Here’s something: my chatGPT quietly assumed I had ADHD for around 9 months, up until October 2025. I don’t suffer from ADHD. I only found out through an answer that began “As you have ADHD..” I had it stop right there, and asked it to tell me exactly where it got this information; the date, the title of the chat, the exact moment it took this data on as an attribute of mine. It was unable to specify any of it, aside…

I wouldn't be surprised it's because people self diagnose and talk about their """adhd""" all the time on reddit &co. where chatgpt was trained a lot.
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