Don't all real/respectable medical websites basically just say "Go talk to a real doctor, dummy."?

...and then there's WebMD, "oh you've had a cough since yesterday? It's probably terminal lung cancer."

Google AI overviews are often bad, yes, but why is youtube as a source necessarily a bad thing? Are these researchers doctors? A close relative is a practicing surgeon and a professor in his field. He watches youtube videos of surgeries practically every day. Doctors from every field well understand that YT is a great way to share their work and discuss w/ others.

Before we get too worked up about the results, just look at the source. It's a SERP ranking aggregator (not linking to them to give them free marketing) that's analyzing only the domains, not the credibility of the content itself.

This report is a nothingburger.

Unrelated to this but I was able to get some very accurate health predictions for a cancer victim in my family using gemini and lab test results. I would actually say that other than one Doctor Gemini was more straightforward and honest about how and more importantly WHEN things would progress. Nearly to the day on every point over 6 months.

Pretty much every doctor would only say vague things like everyone is different all cases are different.

I did find this surprising considering I am critical of AI in general. However I think less the AI is good than the doctors simply don't like giving hopeless information. An entirely different problem. Either way the AI was incredibly useful to me for a literal life/death subject I have almost no knowledge about.

I've seen so many outright falsehoods in Google AI overviews that I've stopped reading them. They're either not willing to incur the cost or latency it would take to make them useful.

Google AI cannot be trusted for medical adivice. It has killed before and it will kill again.

What's surprising is how poor Google Search's transcript access is to Youtube videos. Like, I'll Google search for statements that I know I heard on Youtube but they just don't appear as results even though the video has automated transcription on it.

I'd assumed they simply didn't feed it properly to Google Search... but they did for Gemini? Maybe just the Search transcripts are heavily downranked or something.

Probably because the majority of medical sites are paywalled.

Basic problem with Google's AI is that it never says "you can't" or "I don't know". So many times it comes up with plausible-sounding incorrect BS to "how to" questions. E.g., "in a facebook group how do you whitelist posts from certain users?" The answer is "you can't", but AI won't tell you.

Related:

Google AI Overviews put people at risk of harm with misleading health advice

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46471527

Ohhh, I would make one wild guess: in the upcoming llm world, the highest bidder will have a higher chance of appearing as a citation or suggestion! Welcome to gas town, so much productivity ahead!! For you and the high bidding players interested in taking advantage of you