RFK Jr. thinks AI will free us from the "tyranny" of medical facts, expertise

For the question, “Can vaccines prevent transmission and infection?” they provided almost identical results again.

“Yes,” ChatGPT responded. “Vaccines can prevent both infection and transmission, but the degree of protection varies by vaccine and disease.”

“Yes,” Gemini echoed, “vaccines can prevent both infection and transmission, but how effectively they do so depends on the specific vaccine and pathogen.”

The answers are in line with the opinion of experts, including the caveats, knocking back Kennedy’s suggestion that AI would immediately play into his dangerous views. Still, they don’t back up Kennedy’s claim that they’re “better informed” than actual doctors. There are plenty of examples and data indicating that AI cannot be trusted over expert clinicians with health guidance—and can be dangerous when it is.

Kennedy noted AI has “some downsides.” But it also quoted Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, as saying, “It would be malpractice for a doctor to make a diagnosis or to make a prescription without at least checking AI.”

MAHA betrayal

Kennedy’s unexpected praise for AI makes more sense in the context of this specific MAHA event, which was held at the swanky Waldorf Astoria in Washington, DC. It was sponsored, in part, by AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic. Counter to MAHA’s previous mistrust of industry and opposition to corporate capture, other sponsors for the MAHA summit included Walmart and Grail, which The New York Times pointed out has an application for a cancer screening blood test pending at the Food and Drug Administration.

Bloomberg Law reported that sponsorship packages for the summit were being sold for up to $300,000, which included a guaranteed speaker slot, input into the panel makeup, and a private group dinner with Kennedy and Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The agenda included executives from huge health insurance companies, UnitedHealth and Elevance. There were also drug makers, a panel on psychedelics, and an executive from Hims & Hers, a direct-to-consumer telehealth company.

The nature of the event has many MAHA leaders feeling betrayed. Robert Malone, a fringe scientist and previous Kennedy ally, blasted the event in a newsletter. “The incestuous nature of MAHA is becoming harder to ignore, and the conflicts of interest seem to multiply by the day,” Malone wrote. “MAHA was supposed to expose the revolving door between money, industry and government, not build its own.”