There’s more than two options here. It was already difficult to deal with self diagnosis for doctors, now we have a machine that outputs recommendations, and does it with confidence whether it’s correct or not.
The same issues that were present with search-engine self diagnosis are still present with LLMs. If you provide Google with an incomplete list of symptoms and can’t interpret the information you find correctly, you will likely get an incorrect diagnosis. The same is true for LLM output.
Everyone on the internet loves to put doctors on a pedestal, but I think upwards of 30% of my doctor visits have been misdiagnosed.
There's a reason I ask AI about absolutely everything medical and there's a reason I keep extra quantities of prescription medications around for emergencies. I've saved my own ass a lot more times than the doctors have, thanks to good doctors not being available.
That works in your case because you likely already have an analytical mindset, can reliably discard or research information further. Same thing why AI is in an enabler for people having already some skill. But it can be very dangerous or misleading for people blindly believing all output.
> It was already difficult to deal with self diagnosis for doctors
I get it. But the current system is also super difficult for the patient: getting time to ask questions, get clear answers, get the best possible diagnosis taking into account your history, symptoms etc and all that in 5-10 minute checkup when your doctor sees 50 patients a day and has very little time for you; this doesn't scale well. Patients run to A.I for a reason.
There are quite a few disclaimers everywhere that soften confidence: "always ask a medical specialist", "I'm not a doctor", "this could have been this or that but really not sure", etc.
The same issues that were present with search-engine self diagnosis are still present with LLMs. If you provide Google with an incomplete list of symptoms and can’t interpret the information you find correctly, you will likely get an incorrect diagnosis. The same is true for LLM output.