- 40 million ChatGPT users ask about health every day
- 200 million ChatGPT users ask AI at least once a week about health-related topics
- OpenAI says that “AI is an ally of healthcare”
OpenAI has published a report claiming that 40 million people use ChatGPT for health-related questions every day, a figure that would have sounded crazy a couple of years ago but now seems almost inevitable.
The company describes its chatbot as a healthcare ally and says users regularly ask about symptoms, medications, treatment options and how to navigate often overwhelmed healthcare systems.
The report suggests that more than five percent of all ChatGPT messages are about health, and 200 million of the chatbot’s 800 million weekly users ask at least one health-related message each week.
Most of them are people trying to figure out if a headache is serious, what a complicated diagnosis really means, or whether a new prescription is supposed to make them so tired. I admit I did the same thing after a spiral of nighttime indigestion, something I used to turn to Google for just a couple of years ago.
How Americans are using AI for health
The OpenAI report asked 1,042 US adults who used AI for healthcare in the last 3 months exactly how they use the chatbot for health-related matters.
55% used AI to “check or explore symptoms,” 52% used a chatbot to “ask questions about healthcare at any time of the day,” 48% to “understand medical terms or instructions,” and 44% used AI to “learn about treatment options.”
OpenAI says these statistics show “how Americans are using AI for healthcare navigation: organizing information, translating jargon, and generating drafts they can check.”
One example the company highlighted was Ayrin Santoso of San Francisco, who “used ChatGPT to help coordinate urgent care for her mother in Indonesia after her mother suffered sudden vision loss that her family attributed to fatigue.”
According to OpenAI, Santoso “entered symptoms, previous advice and context, and received a clear warning from ChatGPT that his mother’s condition could indicate a hypertensive crisis and possible stroke.”
According to ChatGPT’s initial response, Santoso’s mother was hospitalized in Indonesia and has since “recovered 95% of her vision in the affected eye.”
Should we be worried?
OpenAI maintains that AI can help outside of clinical hours, when it is difficult to contact real doctors. That makes sense on paper with confusing health information, but there are serious risks, especially when you take ChatGPT’s word as gospel.
A chatbot cannot replace a doctor; You don’t have your complete medical history and you can still get important things wrong. OpenAI says it is working with hospitals and researchers to improve accuracy and safety, but the core message is clear: Millions of people have already decided that AI is part of their health routine, whether the rest of us like it or not.
40 million daily users is an incredible milestone, but while it’s easy to get carried away by such a historic figure, it’s worth remembering that people have been using technology like Google for health-related queries for over a decade.
That said, Google’s top search results tended to be headed by trusted health-related websites, such as the UK’s NHS or WebMD. Now, general descriptions of AI add an element of uncertainty about AI. And even more so when you turn to a chatbot with AI like ChatGPT, capable of inventing the most ridiculous information.
I don’t think using AI to get quick advice on health-related matters is a bad thing, especially in countries like the United States where you have to pay to see a doctor for a simple skin irritation. But how do you know it’s a simple skin irritation? And do you trust ChatGPT enough to take the risk?
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