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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.
@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
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.
Isn't it great when you ask someone to cite their sources, and instead of doing so, they say "Google it"? They really sound smart when they do that, huh?
@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.