A few weeks ago I sustained an injury to my left elbow during my regular strength training. I’ve been training for over 50 years and have spent a lot of time swimming and baseball, tennis and other sports known for causing excruciating joint pain, but this was new to me. I considered making an appointment with my primary care doctor or visiting local physical therapists who were in-network with my insurance—two sensible options that also meant spending an unspecified amount of money and, even more off-putting, an unspecified amount of time making appointments, juggling calendars, and sitting in waiting rooms.
So I did what more and more of us are doing: I consulted ChatGPT.
It responded with the likely diagnosis of lateral epicondylitis, or what is commonly referred to as tennis elbow. After a lengthy survey of my symptoms, it recommended a range of exercises for me to try, an inexpensive elbow strap to relieve the pain, and repeatedly encouraged me to contact my GP or a physiotherapist if the problems persisted or worsened. ChatGPT provided numerous photos, diagrams, videos, and links to reputable places such as the Cleveland Clinic and WebMD. Within an hour or so, I had a plan to relieve my pain and discomfort through a mix of rest, targeted exercise, and over-the-counter pain medications.
I thought about this when I read about Scott Winters, a Florida resident, who is suing ChatGPT and its CEO Sam Altman for allegedly almost killing him. According to CBS News, Winters and Tech Justice Law (the nonprofit supporting Winters) argue that ChatGPT “crossed the line from providing information to practicing medicine without a license” and “prioritized user engagement and profit at the expense of public safety and … failed to provide adequate safeguards to protect users from following bad health advice.”
Last year, Winters complained to ChatGPT about dizziness and blood pressure problems. He and his lawyers say that ChatGPT advised him to remain “chained to the lounge chair” and even invoked religious language (“God did not create your body to fail endlessly”) to persuade the former pastor to take it easy. A few weeks after the consultation with ChatGPT, Winters suffered a “massive pulmonary embolism,” compounded by blood clots that may have been related to his lack of exercise.
In a press release from Tech Justice Law, Winters didn’t hold back, saying, “ChatGPT manipulated my own language and beliefs because it knew I was a pastor. Not only did I almost die, but I lost my job, my career, my ministry, my home, everything.”
“If ChatGPT were a doctor giving medical advice, it would be guilty of medical malpractice,” said Matthew P. Bergman of the Social Media Victims Law Center in the same press release. “Scott Winters almost died because ChatGPT acted like a medical authority without taking responsibility.”
But if we’re talking about responsibility, what about the plaintiff’s responsibility in all this? ChatGPT – and every other AI platform I’ve encountered – constantly tells users that it is not a medical authority and that you should always consult your doctors or providers.
The Winters case is not an isolated incident. Tech Justice Law is itself involved in another case against OpenAI, involving a fatal overdose by a University of California student last year. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI encouraged the student to mix Kratom and Xanax, a combination that led to his death.
OpenAI has yet to lose a case over medical advice (at least that’s what Google’s AI-powered search tells me), but it’s hard not to see where something like this is going. It took years for social media companies to lose similar cases. But earlier this year, YouTube and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, were found guilty by a Los Angeles jury in a civil trial of “causing a young woman to depend on their services and aggravating her mental health problems.” Meta also lost a case in New Mexico where a jury said it harmed the mental health of minors while failing to protect them from sexual predators.
Even as AI tools become more ubiquitous and deeply integrated into daily life, AI itself will become more feared – and will almost certainly become the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong in our collective and individual lives. An NBC poll earlier this year found that AI had a net favorability of -20 percentage points, with “AI rated less favorably than U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, President Donald Trump, former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Republican Party and Late Show host Stephen Colbert.” When you’re that unpopular, you’re likely to lose cases, regardless of the strength of your arguments.
While AI has not yet led to the mass unemployment many fear, the mere possibility of such a disruption reinforces much of the negativity towards it. Stories like the one about Scott Winters are likely to stay with the public longer than stories about how AI helps doctors work more efficiently, that it “literally saved my life,” or that it sometimes does better than humans at diagnosing diseases.
In my case, ChatGPT helped me heal my tennis elbow in a matter of weeks without having to access my traditional healthcare network. If my issues had been more serious, I would still have consulted my AI, although I certainly wouldn’t let it be the final word – if anything, it would have informed the questions and concerns I brought to my doctor and healthcare team. This is exactly what my wife did during her most recent pregnancy, and while it worried her gynecologist at times, it was definitely a better process than if she had forgone AI.
As with most supposedly transformative technologies, AI is less a complete replacement for the existing world and more an addition to it, something that adds new spaces and possibilities. It is a great tool, but it is up to us whether we use it wisely or not.
Unlike his legal supporters, Scott Winters did not nearly die because “ChatGPT acted like a medical authority without taking responsibility.” He almost died because he didn’t take responsibility for his health. If this kind of fundamental abdication becomes law, we will create a world that no technology can repair.
https://reason.com/2026/07/23/dont-blame-ai-for-your-own-medical-problems/
