ECONUNDRUMS - CHATBOT QUACKS

AI was supposed to fix online health misinformation. Instead, it's making it worse.

- DEREK BERES

NOT LONG AGO, I noticed a new term trending in social media wellness circles: "certified hormone specialist." I could have investigated it the old-fashioned way: googling, calling up an expert or two, digging into the scientific literature. I'm accustomed to researching suspicious certifications for my podcast, Con-spirituality, which covers how health misinformation metastasizes online. Instead, I tried something new.

I asked a couple chatbots: What training does someone need to specialize in female hormones? The bots pointed me toward an "advanced 12-month self-paced continuing education program in hormone health" run by Ashe Milkovic, a Reiki practitioner and homeopath. Then things really got interesting: "Alternatively, one can become an endocrinologist," the AI added, before citing the 13 years of education required, including medical school and residencies. For the casual reader, "alternatively" basically puts these two options on equal footing-never mind that one is a rigorous program rooted in science while the other is a yearlong course invented by someone with no medical background. When I asked ChatGPT-4 whether Milkovic's certification program is legit, it replied that the training is part of the field of "functional medicine," neglecting to mention that's referring to a pseudomedical discipline not recognized by any of the 24 boards that certify medical specialists.