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Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying
(www.thenerve.news)
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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The medical field is one of the places where AI has made real, tangible improvements.
I can't vouch for that other person's anecdote, but it seems entirely plausible that an LLM chatbot would be able to better diagnose an issue than a search engine, or even a human doctor, especially if the underlying issue was something like an autoimmune disease, which are notoriously difficult to diagnose.
One of the big flaws in the medical profession (and, really, most professions) is that once you are out of school, nothing forces you to keep learning as the field advances. This potentially, and counterintuitively, results in gaps in knowledge that increase the longer a doctor has been practicing. LLMs, with access to the newer medical information and with the ability to receive and output natural language, do make good tools for diagnosis.
AI, as it turns out, is also way better at analyzing MRI scans and x-rays than humans.
An old-fashioned Google search can point you to more information, if you're curious about how AI has advanced the medical field.
Medical AI is usually more along the lines of ‘we’ve created a proprietary model for computer aided diagnostics specific to x disease being scanned with y modality and we’ve taken this through the regulatory process in z jurisdiction’ than ‘put your symptoms into an LLM lol’.
There are studies that show that LLMs (chatbots) perform as well or better than human physicians.
I'm not suggesting getting rid of physicians, though. This is a tool for humans, not a replacement.
@joe @mobyduck648 [citation needed]
@joe if it's a tool for doctors to use then it will simply increase the costs of providing care even if there is an increase in the quality of that care. That means adoption of that particular type of "AI" will be limited. If it's possible to replace doctors with a chatbot, that will decrease costs even if the quality of care also decreases.
Which one do you think is more likely to be widely used in a profit-driven, anti-human system?
@mobyduck648
Don't conflate the fucked up medical system of the US with any other countries system. If the cost in Belgium would rise 40%, I would pay 7€ instead of 5€.
These are concerns with the healthcare system, not concerns with AI.
@joe they are not separable. Just like concerns about fair compensation for visual artists and writers are inseparable from "AI".
Noted: my question remains unanswered.
Super cool! Well we can base your personal healthcare on AI's sole guidance and if you are misdiagnosed, injured or dead as a result of an "oopsie", no human will be held legally liable - fun!
So no real stakes for anyone to get it right, as with human-led interventions (with careers on the line at every stage to keep people engaged and honest). But corporations will probably just naturally do the right thing.
But you're brave, you offer yourself as tribute to the lying machine. Tight tight tight!!!
You seem very passionate about this topic, but you're not really adding much to the discussion.
Don't worry, its coming across loud and clear that AI could cure cancer and you'd still think it was better to have cancer than use AI. I get it. AI = bad, full stop. Message received.
"AI" isn't a thing. Computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing and neural networks are. These can all be useful tools when regulated and maintained with active oversight to balance with society's other core priorities. What's at question is the current method and human cost for this frivolously hyped, deceptively marketed lying machine with a single tangible use to date, being the operating system for Facebook's pervert glasses. You didn't read, of missed the entire point of, this important article, shared from an important contemporary mind.
Name and cite SPECIFIC examples of anything you claim.
P.s. you don't "cure cancer"... cancer is a broad heading for hundreds of unique types of disease, presenting in different, completely unique systems within the human body. Like AI, "a cure for cancer" is a broad generalization of complex underlying systems that ignorant people make frivolously - People who think they HAVE the entire knowledge of the world in their brains, when they actually only have a plastic rectangle in their pants pocket with privilege-gated access to a (mostly corporate) CURATED VERSION of the world's historic knowledge. So if you've "cured cancer" friend, why aren't you treating the 20-30k humans that will die from a form or cancer today worldwide?
Funny how my experience is the American health care system is still 100% absolute shit that costs me 2k a month for the privilege of said shit. My wait times are the same, my "go fuck yourselves" are the same, my healthcare workers are still underpaid, and the systems for consumers are still shit.
"But the charts say AI is helping"
Once again it's consumers get to wait for the piss to trickle down our backs. AI hasn't done shit for the average Joe except make everything cost more while providing a worse service. Please, tell me how my healthcare experience has improved in the past 2 years. Go.
You are talking about a different thing than I am. The American healthcare system is garbage with or without AI, but AI is helping the medical field. Getting a more accurate analysis of an MRI scan is objectively a good thing, for example, even if the healthcare system that performed the scan is garbage.
They're not using LLMs to analyse MRI scans. There are image processing algorithms for that, but they're a whole other thing to what this entire thread is about.
Also, are you a fucking bot? I've read all your comments so far in this thread and uhh yeah. Please feel free to jog on now.
I'm flattered. Did you read the first one where I said it was reductive to equate AI with chatbots?
When people say AI they are talking about Gen AI chatbots. Pretending they aren't in a thread discussing an article where the author is definitely talking about chatbots is being really pedantic.
Which was my earlier point. He is wrong when he equates AI with nothing more than chatbots.
He's not wrong. He's talking about what everyone else is talking about and you're arguing semantics. AI is generic enough of a term that it's been applied to thousands of things over time. But almost all of the modern hype about "AI" and the stock bubble and everything is referring to the chatbots. I know you know this.
As I said elsewhere, that's like saying the internet is just websites (and apparently for some people, that's all it is).
However, it's irrelevant, Doctorow may have wanted to just discuss chatbots, but that doesn't mean that's all I'm allowed to discuss. I've tried to make it clear that I'm not just talking about chatbots. If I wasn't clear enough on that point, I apologise
Now that this has been cleared up, do you have anything further to discuss?
You're not very good at this
If you have any specific constructive criticism or corrections for me, I'll happily read them. Otherwise, it seems more like you're avoiding addressing what I've said and just looking to insult me, which I'm sure was not your intent.
How is "helping the medical field" not compatible with better healthcare quality? If the end user isn't experiencing benefits, then how can you claim that benefits have been provided? Who is getting these "benefits" if it's not the end user? If someone IS getting benefits, yet the end users still haven't gotten a better experience... Then can you agree that AI is only helping intermediaries? Like... The corporations who provide the garbage experience?
Do you see your logical fallacy here?
If your loved one is diagnosed with cancer early that would have been missed by a human, that's a fucking benefit, is it not?
I'm sick of luddites.
@joe @Snapz
> The medical field is one of the places where AI has made real, tangible improvements.
This is demonstrably untrue.
AI tends to increase dangerous racial bias in healthcare.
- https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/healthcare-bias-in-ai-a-systematic-literature-review/
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract%5C_id=3747737
- https://tech4future.info/en/algorithmic-discrimination-healthcare/
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-022-00590-8
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40615-024-02237-0
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20539517231213820
- https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791(24)00321-5
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-025-01746-4
@joe @Snapz AI is dangerously unreliable in a clinical setting and often provides dangerous medical advice in and out of clinical settings.
- https://futurism.com/typo-ai-doctor-haywire
- https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/aimcc.2024.1260
- https://ai.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/AIoa2300015
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3715275.3732121
- https://www.npr.org/2023/06/08/1181131532/eating-disorder-helpline-takes-down-chatbot-after-it-gave-weight-loss-advice
- https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/serious-medical-error-from-perplexitys
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3715275.3732039
AI can make medical professionals less competent
- https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(25)00133-5/abstract
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10462-025-11352-1
Just adding my two cents to this because I have heard this before. The AI wasn't programmed to do this. It was training to based off the racist shit on the internet that it takes from. Systemic racism just doing it's thing.
To be clear, I didn't mean to imply that AI was flawless or had no room for improvement, only that it has made real, tangible improvements. This is why it shouldn't be used as a replacement for humans, but as a tool for humans.
@joe Please cite your sources. What improvements? How were these improvements tested, studied, and documented? Where were the results published?
I trust you're capable enough to do your own Google search.
@joe So you made them up. Good to know.
I see. You would rather feel correct than be correct. That's not a wise strategy.
The studies I allude to exist or don't independently from whether I spoon feed them to you.
Good to know.
@joe If you were knowledgeable about medical AI & acting in good faith you'd have no trouble supplying sources to support your assertions & no reluctance to do so. It's a super basic part of serious discussions.
I provide multiple sources on the real dangers of using AI for medical purposes. All I asked was for you to do the same.
Instead you resort to evasion and an ad hominem attack.
If you have any serious, evidence-based thing to say, I'm happy to read it. Otherwise, have a good day.
AI is very very different from llms. And no, an LLm can't diagnose shit. A camera trained to detect certain cancerous cells in imaging works fantastically though
..although it was originally created to identify pastries