As someone with a complicated medical history, including a very rare complication arising from a medication for a rare condition, I have serious reservations about the use of LLMs in medical contexts. It’s not that humans can’t get it wrong, but my experience with medical professionals is that if they’re not certain about something, they will go check with a colleague or look something up in a textbook/online resource (and honestly I’m reassured when a doctor does this! It shows self-awareness and humility to admit they’re not experts on everything and they’d rather be careful than protect their ego.) An LLM will just confidently bullshit a diagnosis. That might be fine for someone with a straightforward medical history suffering from a common, easily treated condition. It could be deadly for someone whose medical history is more complex.
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Very good read!
As someone with a complicated medical history, including a very rare complication arising from a medication for a rare condition, I have serious reservations about the use of LLMs in medical contexts. It’s not that humans can’t get it wrong, but my experience with medical professionals is that if they’re not certain about something, they will go check with a colleague or look something up in a textbook/online resource (and honestly I’m reassured when a doctor does this! It shows self-awareness and humility to admit they’re not experts on everything and they’d rather be careful than protect their ego.) An LLM will just confidently bullshit a diagnosis. That might be fine for someone with a straightforward medical history suffering from a common, easily treated condition. It could be deadly for someone whose medical history is more complex.