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

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

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like excellent evidentiary material for a future insurer or government health provider to decide you're uninsurable, not eligible for a job, and so on. And the great thing about it is that you already signed all your rights away for them to do this exact thing , when we could have had an open world with open models run locally instead where you got to keep your private health information private.

If an insurer is able to reduce (or recoup) costs from likelier risks, then the remaining insureds benefit from lower premiums. If the goal is providing subsidies (i.e. wealth transfers), then insurance is not the way to do it. That is the government’s role.

We agree that insurance is not the right way to handle health as a product, since some people predictably need much more medical treatment than others. But it’s how the US has chosen to do it, so we have to do it in a way that works. Correctly identifying a systemic issue won’t pay your medical bills.

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

#52

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…

Yeah, it’s a very powerful tool, and it needs to be used carefully and with intent. People on Hacker News mostly get that already, but for ordinary users it’s a full-on paradigm shift.

It moved from: A very precise source of information, where the hardest part was finding the right information.

To: Something that can produce answers on demand, where the hardest part is validating that information, and knowing when to doubt the answer and force it to recheck the sources.

This happened in a year or two so I can't really blame. The truth machine where you doesn't needed to focus too much on validating answers changed rapidly to slop machine where ironically, your focus is much more important.

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

#53
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's awesome that it's helped you so much, chronic back pain is awful. Is it possible though, that this could be interpreted as a failure of the trainer to come up with a successful treatment plan for you? "Sudden" relief after 10 years of therapy just because you changed the program seems like they were just having you perform the wrong exercises no?

We have to also understand that the trainer didn't get to spend 12 hours of researching every minutia or do a trial and error study to get to where OP got to. This doesn't necessarily mean the trainer failed, just that they were constrained by time, which OP wasn't. And I think that is the essence of this tech, when used wisely, I can lead to results like these which you can't get despite having access to the best ta…

Absolutely, I didn't mean any disrespect towards any of the professionals helping OP with their back issues. It can be an incredibly hard thing to treat.

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

#54
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 seems like outcomes are probably K-shaped: those who are capable of critical thinking and deciding what type of information should be confirmed by a healthcare professional and what type of information is relatively riskless to consume from ChatGPT should have positive outcomes.

Those who are prone to disinformation and misinterpretation may experience some very negative health outcomes.

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

#56
post #38

Once again, glad to live in Europe.

If you lived in the US and you didn't like this product, you can just choose to not use it. What benefit do you as a citizen of Europe derive from having this withheld from you?

> you didn't like this product, you can just choose to not use it

This is an over-simplification. I might like the product, but not be aware of the various ways it violates my privacy. Having laws that make it more risky for companies to do nefarious things makes me more confident that if a product is available in the EU market it doesn't do obviously bad things.

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

#57
post #50
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:…

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.

I have this same reaction.

But I also have to honestly ask myself “aren’t humans also prone to make stuff up” when they feel they need to have an answer, but don’t really?

And yet despite admitting that humans hallucinate and make failures too, I remain uncomfortable with ultimate trust in LLMs.

Perhaps, while LLMs simulate authority well, there is an uncanny valley effect in trusting them, because some of the other aspect of interacting with an authority person are “off”.

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

#58
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, sometimes you end up like this guy. Are you feeling lucky? https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/08/after-using-chatgpt-m...

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.

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

#59
post #38

Once again, glad to live in Europe.

If you lived in the US and you didn't like this product, you can just choose to not use it. What benefit do you as a citizen of Europe derive from having this withheld from you?

"You can just choose not to use it", sure, until signing a consent form to use ChatGPT becomes mandatory for a doctor visit, just like all kinds of other technology (like having a cell phone to verify SMS, for example) is basically essential now to function in society.

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

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an insurer is able to reduce (or recoup) costs from likelier risks, then the remaining insureds benefit from lower premiums. If the goal is providing subsidies (i.e. wealth transfers), then insurance is not the way to do it. That is the government’s role.

We agree that insurance is not the right way to handle health as a product, since some people predictably need much more medical treatment than others. But it’s how the US has chosen to do it, so we have to do it in a way that works. Correctly identifying a systemic issue won’t pay your medical bills.

That is not how the US has chosen to do it. The ACA prohibits using anything other than age, location, and tobacco use for premium pricing, and the ACA prohibits denying coverage (resulting in a wealth transfer from healthy to sick).

Even the age rating factor is capped at 3, so there are also massive wealth transfers from young to old.

Mathematically, health insurance premiums in the US are more tax than insurance premium.

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