Taiwanese doctors warned against using artificial intelligence (AI) for health advice, after a German study showed that Google AI cited YouTube videos in answers about medicine read by billions of people each month.
SE Ranking, a search engine optimization platform, found that YouTube videos made up 4.43 percent of the citations used by Google AI overview in more than 50,000 health queries, the Guardian said in a Jan. 26 report.
In comparison, reputable sources from medical doctors, health officials and academia comprised only 1 percent of the sources cited by the overview, the study said.
Photo: Reuters
Google has disputed the findings, saying that the researchers utilized only German-language search results, which do not apply to the technology’s performance elsewhere in the world.
Medical professionals attending a conference by Technology Medica Center, Taiwan said that they have observed patients who try to make medical decisions solely on AI summaries of queries without reading cited sources.
Taiwan Municipal An-Nan Hospital head psychiatrist Chang Chun-hung (張俊鴻) said young patients are increasingly making use of generative AI for medical advice.
These patients did not check the sources, which most people would have done before, he said.
Relying on the AI summary might save time, but its tendency to project confidence in its short responses obscures uncertainty in the medical profession about complex conditions and variance in symptoms, Chang said.
AI summaries can find sources, but not identify their evidentiary strength and credibility, which means they cannot be utilized as a substitute for actual clinical observation by a qualified professional, he said.
The information provided by AI could come from small-sample research that has not been replicated, or studies that are irrelevant to the person making the query, Chang added.
This causes unnecessary emotional distress for patients, reduces public trust in doctors and wastes time and medical resources, he said.
Taipei Medical University vice president Tsai Pei-shan (蔡佩珊) said the proper place for search engines and AI summaries is for the public to understand a condition and not as a diagnostic tool.
Users need to check what are the sources and who wrote them when doing their own research and never rely on algorithmic tools to make medical decisions, she said.
Checking multiple sources and comparing different answers are crucial for reading about medicine and medical conditions, Tsai added.
“Changing a therapy, stopping the use of a prescription or refusing a check-up are not the type of decisions patients should make without asking a medical professional,” she said.
The government should be more aggressive in demanding AI platforms to display cautionary warnings prominently on query results, said Tsai Chang-youh (蔡長祐), a researcher at the National Cybersecurity Institute.
“International corporations such as Google should of course be consulted in the legislative process, but health information that can put lives at risk must be prioritized,” he said.
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