this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2026
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AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
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WebMD is just a website with information pages on health topics, not a program or custom response, is it not?
I think that there is a future that it may be a reasonable first step for people with restricted access barriers, but at this stage its too much of the wild west to be using it for these higher level cases.
But regardless i dont have specific information to present you, i woild argue the amount of people that have committ suicide after interacting with LLMs rather than seeing a mental health professional would be a fairly relevant example though.
I thought the issue you had was with the information itself. Why does it "being a program" matter? That said, it is; "symptom checker" specifically and "page rank" more generally.
And? There seems to be this assumption that "wild West" == bad/dangerous/scary/harmful. The modern Internet is certainly far less of the "wild West" it used to be. I would also argue it is also far more dangerous, harmful and nefarious than the "wild West" web.
Anecdotes aren't useless, but they need to be contextualized. Is it higher than the baseline? Is it greater then those who didn't commit suicide because when the mental health institutions failed them they at least had some sort of backup?
Navigating healthcare while dealing with a mental health issues is a paradox. Is the damage caused greater than the damage prevented from allowing access to a tool that can help lower that barrier to entry?
Looking at general trends I find that the harms outweighing the benefits very hard to believe. Do you have anything non-anecdotal, on that specific point, to back it up?
Look mate, all i am saying is that cutting edge technology shouldnt be used for critical areas until it is proven safe, i really am not invested enough in the cenversation to continue this thread, i support the descision being made to restrict LLM use for these areas at this point in time.
LLMs have been linked to mental health impacts, specifically demonstrably in suicide cases (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_linked_to_chatbots) and i do believe in a lot of these cases the LLMs caused greater harm than would have been presented without the LLM interference, and definitely less harm than if these people saw a human professional to talk about their issues rather than a program. Yes there is a cost of seeing a health professional but this is not a case of 'somethings better than nothing'.
I do think that helps clear it up for me and helps me understand the disconnect we're having. If you're done don't let this pressure you into responding, but I'm responding for the sake of trying to resolve the difference in perspective.
We agree that there are real harms from this technology. We agree that human professionals are, on average, significantly better especially within the context of healthcare.
We disagree on what "safe" means. I am coming from the perspective that there is no such thing. There will always be side effects irregardless of the domain, technology, intervention, etc. and so the question is does it do more harm than good?
I do not see a single instance among that list, or others, that isn't just a blatant failure of existing healthcare and social systems. Without ascribing supernatural social powers to this technology I fail to see how the LLM usage is anything more than a symptom of those institutional failures.
Legislating away access will do nothing more than give the monopoly power to the same institutions responsible for the initial failure and the initial conditions that led to that point while providing them with a scapegoat.