Using an LLM to diagnose/treat a health issue is not yet mature and not going to be such in the foreseeable future. It's not like predicting a protein fold or presenting a business report. Medical advice is in many dimensions incompatible with artificial support: non-quantifiable, fuzzy, case-specific, intimate, empathic and awfully responsible. Even AGI is not enough. In order to become a doctor, the machine has to develop next-level dexterities, namely to follow the interplay of multiple concurrent factors on various types of living tissue. Multiple attempts to bring Decision Support to medicine have failed and LLM is one more. Sure you can take an advice, but it will be the less useful of all the other types you can have.
I misused LLMs to diagnose myself and ended up bedridden for a week
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Re: I misused LLMs to diagnose myself and ended up bedridden for a week
#92I've tried removing my post because the comment section here has become a platform for AI enthusiasts to spread dangerous medical misinformation. As HN does not really care about user privacy, I am unable to actually delete it. I renamed the post to [Removed], but it appears the admins are uninterested in respecting the intent of this, and renamed the post back to its original title.
Moral of the story kids: don't post on HN
Re: I misused LLMs to diagnose myself and ended up bedridden for a week
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've never had "the experience". I'll share mine. Unusual severe one sided eye pain. Go to regular doctor's, explain, get told it's a "stye" and do hot compresses. Problem gets worse, I go to urgent care. Urgent care doc takes one look at me and immediately sends me to the ER saying it's severe and she can't diagnose it because she is unqualified. Go to ER, get seen by two specialists, a general practicioner and a…
> About 70% of hospital deaths are due to preventable mistakes in the hospital. It's awful that you had a bad experience, but no. Nowhere near 70% of hospital deaths are from preventable mistakes. I would also note that in your experience, you ended up trusting a different doctor (ophthalmologist), not ChatGPT. Second opinions from other qualified professionals is a thumbs up from me.
I would add to your note, that the person that was correct in their care was the actual expert. Doctors are experts in their fields, but until they saw an ophthalmologist, they didn't see the right practitioner.
Just like I wouldn't go to my podiatrist to treat a complex case of rosecea, urgent care and GCP aren't for specialized, complex and rare cases.
Re: I misused LLMs to diagnose myself and ended up bedridden for a week
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's morally wrong to trust a child's well-being to an LLM over a trained medical professional, and I feel strongly enough about this to express that here.
I agree with you, and reading some of the takes in this thread is actually blowing my mind. I cannot believe that the top-voted comment right now is saying to not trust doctors, use an LLM to diagnose yourself and others.
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Re: I misused LLMs to diagnose myself and ended up bedridden for a week
#95As a kid, I had a bulls-eye rash which is the tell-tale sign of Lyme disease. My dad snapped a Polaroid since we were on a trip and couldn’t get to my pediatrician for a week. The rash cleared up before I went in. My doctor didn’t want to diagnose it as anything or write an antibiotics prescription…until my dad pulled out the photo. She then immediately wrote the antibiotics for it. The danger of under diagnosis for…
These days I hike a lot, I've had bullseye rashes before and the treatment is so much less worrisome than the rare possibility of developing lyme.
Last time I was in for getting hundreds of tick bites in one hike (that was fun), I was also told to avoid eating red meat until labs came back. That Alpha-gal is getting more common in my area, and the first immune response is anaphylactic in 40% of the cases, best not to risk it.
If you wonder what one side of one leg looked like during the "hundreds of tick bites on a single hike" take a gander: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jekrgxa9fv14j28qga7xc/2025-08...
That was on both legs, both sides all the way up to my knees
Re: I misused LLMs to diagnose myself and ended up bedridden for a week
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you, and reading some of the takes in this thread is actually blowing my mind. I cannot believe that the top-voted comment right now is saying to not trust doctors, use an LLM to diagnose yourself and others.
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Maybe you should put this comment into ChatGPT and ask it if you should take a step away from the computer for a little bit.
>The problem is you're all dumb and getting dumber.
But yeah, you're the only smart person here. Clap clap.
Re: I misused LLMs to diagnose myself and ended up bedridden for a week
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Maybe you should put this comment into ChatGPT and ask it if you should take a step away from the computer for a little bit. > The problem is you're all dumb and getting dumber. But yeah, you're the only smart person here. Clap clap.
>Of course, you and every other histrionic lemming won't take this to heart or even really read it. You'll skim it, pretend that's the same thing, look for the no-no words, hammer your keyboard, confabulate a response to something no one actually said, then pat yourself on the back for having slapped down yet another hand reaching out to lift you out of your own ignorance.
Like clockwork.
Re: I misused LLMs to diagnose myself and ended up bedridden for a week
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe you should put this comment into ChatGPT and ask it if you should take a step away from the computer for a little bit. > The problem is you're all dumb and getting dumber. But yeah, you're the only smart person here. Clap clap.
>Of course, you and every other histrionic lemming won't take this to heart or even really read it. You'll skim it, pretend that's the same thing, look for the no-no words, hammer your keyboard, confabulate a response to something no one actually said, then pat yourself on the back for having slapped down yet another hand reaching out to lift you out of your own ignorance. Like clockwork.
Of course I'm not going to read fucking paragraphs of pretentious writing calling me dumb.
Genius call.
Re: I misused LLMs to diagnose myself and ended up bedridden for a week
#99A LLM isn't able to give me a somewhat complete answer (and sometimes gives a dead wrong one) when I ask information about a eu4 or stellaris mechanic, and those are video games with thousands of articles and videos written about them. How you can trust it with medical questions is beyond me.
Re: I misused LLMs to diagnose myself and ended up bedridden for a week
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you, and reading some of the takes in this thread is actually blowing my mind. I cannot believe that the top-voted comment right now is saying to not trust doctors, use an LLM to diagnose yourself and others.
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Everyone on this website has thoughts on LLM's, not just you.
LLM's are heavily biased by leading questions, which is not a good property in a doctor. They also tend to respond in a way to please the prompter, which might be a frustrated parent, not in a way which is impartial and based on good medical practices. They frequently speak with high confidence and low accuracy.