Despite What You’ve Heard, ChatGPT Still Gives Medical And Legal Advice
Last week, headlines were littered with news that ChatGPT is suddenly no longer allowed to provide users with health or legal advice – a pretty big announcement given the fact that these two features of the app were a fairly big part of the release of…
Last week, headlines were littered with news that ChatGPT is suddenly no longer allowed to provide users with health or legal advice – a pretty big announcement given the fact that these two features of the app were a fairly big part of the release of GPT-5 earlier this year.
The whole incident was “shock”, “horror” and implications that “ that advised against uses of GPT-5 that “may significantly impair the safety, well-being or rights of others”. This specification included advice regarding financial, medical or legal matters. disclosure of the use of AI assistance and its potential limitations”. This advice needed to be reviewed by a licensed professional and, in addition to that, the use of AI in the process needed to be disclosed.
So, what’s changed and why has OpenAI republished these policies?
Well, nothing’s changed – according to OpenAI, this was simply about consolidating all of these AI-related rules and restrictions of use into one list that could be applied across all of the companies products and campaigns.
So, again, there have been no changes, just a rephrasing or reorganisation of existing terms of use. Karan Singhal, Singhal, head of Health AI for OpenAI, cleared things up in a now-deleted Tweet published by Kalshi:
And, for anyone who’s been paying attention over the last few months since GPT-5’s big release, this is old news. ChatGPT has always been able to provide users with some level of legal, financial and medical advice, but at the very outset, this was restricted. It was always about providing people with an additional resource for this sort of information rather than replacing experts. Whether or not this is a good idea (and if people can actually handle discerning the difference between advice given by a doctor and a bot, is another question entirely – but one that, I’ll put bluntly, was spoken about at length when all of this first emerged as news.
This specification included advice regarding financial, medical or legal matters.
OpenAI hasn’t changed its policies: That is, those regarding whether or not ChatGPT can provide users with financial, legal and medical advice. It can still provide generalised advice and it is not (and has never been) intended to replace professional advice. Increasingly often, news is being created out of nothing: Donald Trump’s version of “fake news” is one thing (a so-called intentional fabrication of the truth), but we’re starting to see more and more incidents of an unintentional spread of misinformation fuelled by laziness, professional inexperience and a culture of “fast news”.
The first is a momentary factual misrepresentation that can, and has been, easily amended. These factual inaccuracies are problematic, undoubtedly, but in isolation, they can be rectified fairly quickly and easily.
But the latter is a far more concerning trend that is growing rapidly, and it’s one we should be very, very wary of. It’s buying into this modern age (a lot of which is encouraged by the availability of AI tools and other technology) of being able to do things and create value incredibly quickly. But, this “value” isn’t value at all – it’s a simulation of it, and it’s dangerous.
The reason this is so concerning is that we’ve seen it a lot, especially in tech news. Sam Altman, for instance, has been at the centre of so many of these stories that really are of no substance. For instance, remember the whole “, OpenAI and ChatGPT that are at the centre of this chaos, and the more it’s encouraged, the worse it’ll get.
We can’t stop every last individual from spreading unreliable news from countless publications all over the world, but what we can do is be more critical and more skeptical – that is, as readers and consumers of this kind of information – and not simply blindly share stories without taking a moment to have a real look at them.
And for those who are part of the media cycle, let’s hold ourselves and our colleagues accountable. We live in a world of instant gratification – from online purchases and app-based transportation services to on-demand streaming platforms and more. Ordinary people can now consume more media than ever, so it’s up to us to make sure that that which we publish still holds just as much value as it was expected to in the past – if not more.
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Based on reporting by techround.co.uk.