Typos and slang spur AI to discourage seeking medical care

Should you see a doctor about your sore throat? AI's advice may depend on how carefully you typed your question. When artificial intelligence models were tested on simulated writing from would-be patients, they were more likely to advise against seeking medical care if the writer made typos, included emotional or uncertain language – or was female. AI doesn't know'no' – and that's a huge problem for medical bots "Insidious bias can shift the tenor and content of AI advice, and that can lead to subtle but important differences" in how medical resources are distributed, says Karandeep Singh at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the study. Abinitha Gourabathina at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her colleagues used AI to help create thousands of patient notes in different formats and styles.