Well I live in the nightmare that is the Dutch healthcare system [1]. There are many things that they will fix but they didn’t fix my sleep. A friend fixed my sleep. He is a doctor and prescribed me the right thing. The thing is, he shouldn’t have had to intervene. Without him I could have ended up poor and destitute as my sleep was wrecking me.

And yea, I already did all the standard things. CBT for insomnia helped somewhat. My insurance didn’t fully cover it either, unless I was willing to wait for 8 to 12 months.

And I recently met someone with slow moving metastatic cancer. Thanks to LLMs they will most likely live another 3 to 5 years extra since the Dutch conventional mainline treatment hasn’t been taken yet. But it is German doctors that helped them and Belgian doctors that pointed out in a second opinion that a lot more can be done.

LLMs have a part to play. The false positives are awful, but I have seen an average of 5 out of 10 care when things become too complicated.

Except for trauma treatment. The Dutch healthcare system is amazing once they diagnose classic PTSD.

So it’s definitely not all bad but the trust I had when I was younger has been eroded quite a bit and LLMs can meaningfully step in, in my case at least.

[1] I know there are worse systems. But from what I have heard there are clearly better systems nowadays. It has slipped a lot

People should've googled their symptoms and especially the prescriptions they got. It has always been a good practice. If[0] AI proves to be the new google then people should ask AI too.

[0]: IF.

It’s funny every profession deals with customers making their own guesses at diagnosis.

I told my mechanic the film flam is broken but he said it was the rim ram. He fixed it and we all went in with our lives.

But doctors insist on this God like status so it’s a “nightmare” when patients try to help themselves.

Nightmare because they're always right and the A.I second guessing is always wrong, or because they just don't like to be second guessed?

The NYT did this profile a while back: "Ben Riley was already writing about the risks of chatbots when his dad started trusting A.I. over his doctor."

The dad was a retired neuroscientist who delayed cancer treatment against medical advice because he was certain he had been misdiagnosed based on his own research that he did with the help of A.I.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/well/ai-chatbots-cancer.h...

There's a comment on the article from Ben Riley:

> I am very grateful to Teddy Rosenbluth for sharing my father's story with the world, her kindness and curiousity proved to be restorative in ways I didn't anticipate.

> The two words that everyone used to describe my dad: "intelligent" and "kind," and he was indeed both of those things. The sad irony here is that it was his human intelligence, combined with these strange new tools that purport to be a form of 'artificial' intelligence, that led to his ill-advised decision to forego the treatment he needed for his CLL. A doctor has already commented on this story with the observation that AI "confidently asserts erroneous conclusions," and we simply have no idea how often this is happening or the magnitude of the harm that results.

> Not a day goes by that I don't feel the pang of my father's absence. He might still be here if not for AI. I try not to think about that, but sometimes I can't help myself.

I asked a clanker about symptoms I was having. (I'm not an idiot, I was already on my way to hospital, clanker was just to take my mind off symptoms during the drive.)

The clanker said I'd be fine, I just needed some rest and OTC meds.

The medical staff immediately turfed me to surgery because the same set of symptoms I told the clanker were enough to concern them that I needed emergency surgery.

Had I have listened to the clanker, I'd be dead because I did need emergency surgery. (Hell, I almost kicked the bucket because I waited for someone to wake up to give me a lift because.my insurance probably doesnt cover an ambulance ride.)

Indeed. I don’t even get what OP thinks they are getting out of this other than doubt.

This is obviously going to happen. But sub-par and sloppy doctors are a thing too. Medicine has been using semi-intelligent systems for years that were nevertheless found to improve outcomes.

We need studies that quantify error rates from each source type, then we need to account for the fact that the artificial type will keep improving.

It can be helpful in your understanding the choices made by asking questions and thus in reassurance, but it requires something most people lack: understanding you are likely wrong since you are just collecting information without understanding it.

Pretty much the like most manager these days, so I understand the frustration of the GPs.

It's so much worse than some Google results: people see LLMs as a trusted friend who never talks back and never questions you, who is excellent at convincingly communicating their bs, reeling you in with "tell me more so I can really lock this down", continuing to fool you

A con artist, a fraud

And say it's true because the AI said so.

No, this flow is actually very good.

Like any domain, when you have questions or need a solution, you make research first, then you ask a specialist.

If you explain well the symptoms and context you can have proper advices and then decide on the path next:

    Case A) It looks benign and advices / information that you collected seem reasonable, then you go your way.

    Case B) You need second opinion of a specialist because the subject is too complex, or there are medications that you need approval.

At home you have the time to assess the options, pros and cons of each approaches, the possible questions to ask and then challenge the doctor.

Shared decision-making is an actual evidence-based model of care, and patients who arrive understanding their condition and carrying specific questions tend to get better attention and better outcomes.

Some doctors get annoyed, because they have big ego and choose to be patronizing, but it is exactly their job to answer such questions.

    With LLMs, it's quite good, you get nuanced and rather useful answers.

    Before LLMs, no matter the topic you searched for, the answer was the same: "you have cancer / an [obviously deadly] rare disease"

    • The doctors are not affordable
    • They are too busy for you (< 15 minutes)
    • You may need to wait months to get an appointment
    • They are not good (country-side is an example, and sometimes even country-level)

So, you have something deeply bothering you, your only appointment is in 4 months. It would be insane not to take the time to explore different solutions and not to come informed about the topic.

If you express your prompt properly and do not rely on imagery, you can absolutely have top-tier advices.