2025-12-12
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My mother's worrying reliance on AI for health advice by Viola Zhao, read by Vivian Full.
This essay was originally published on Rest of World.
Every few months, my mother, a 57-year-old kidney transplant patient who lives in a small city in eastern China, embarks on a two-day journey to see her doctor.
She fills her backpack with a change of clothes, a stack of medical reports, and a few boiled eggs to snack on.
Then she takes a 90-minute ride on a high-speed train and checks into a hotel in the eastern metropolis of Hangzhou.
At 7 a.m.
the next day She lines up with hundreds of others to get her blood taken in a long hospital hall that buzzes like a crowded marketplace.
In the afternoon, when the lab results arrive, she makes her way to a specialist's clinic.
She gets about three minutes with the doctor, maybe five if she's lucky.
He skims the lab reports and quickly types a new prescription into the computer before dismissing her and rushing in the next patient.
Then, my mother packs up and starts the long commute home.
Deepseek treated her differently.
My mother began using China's leading AI chatbot to diagnose her symptoms this past winter.
She would lie down on her couch and open the app on her iPhone.
Hi, she said in her first message the chatbot on the 2nd of February.
Hello, how can I assist you today?
The system responded instantly, adding a smiley emoji.