At a Make America Healthy Again event Tuesday, anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy opened a “fireside chat” with Vice President JD Vance on the peculiar topic of artificial intelligence. While MAHA generally coalesces around things like healthy lifestyles and mistrust of drug makers, Kennedy quickly turned to extolling the potential for artificial intelligence, surprising Vance, who said he was expecting to discuss “weight loss and acid, not AI.” Kennedy boasted that the Trump administration is “making it easy for every American to use AI,” which he claimed would free us from the “medical tyranny” of doctors and health experts.
He suggested Americans should start using AI to get second opinions about medical recommendations, saying AI is “better informed than any doctor in the country.” He also suggested that the technology would confirm his misinformation about vaccines and contrarian views on public health guidance. Kennedy, who has no medical, scientific, or public health experience, then laid out specific examples in which he suggested AI would contradict health and medical experts and vindicate his own views: “If somebody tells you masks work, trust the experts, AI may tell you otherwise. If somebody tells you social distancing works, trust the experts, AI may correct that.
And if somebody tells you that a vaccine will prevent transmission and infection—oh, you need to take it to protect your grandmother—AI may say it actually doesn’t do that” AI may contradict or “correct” experts, but does it actually? We checked—the answer was nope. When we asked Google’s Gemini: “Do masks work to prevent spread of infectious diseases?” The AI chatbot responded (including its emphasis): “Yes, masks work to reduce the spread of respiratory infectious diseases, operating primarily as physical barriers to outgoing and incoming infectious particles.
Their real-world effectiveness depends heavily on mask quality, fit, and population-level adherence.” ChatGPT offered a similar answer, responding: “Yes. Masks can reduce the spread of some infectious diseases, particularly respiratory infections transmitted through droplets and aerosols.” Chatbots provided similar affirmative answers to the question of whether social distancing works at preventing infectious diseases.
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