Full Transcript Introduction and AI formula cautionary tale 0:00 Catherine, my friend and associate, who's very good at doing AI searches now, had her labs done. 0:07 She uploaded her lab. 0:10 and got an answer. 0:11 So they came back with a formula. 0:13 And Catherine said, to me, what do you think about this formula? 0:16 Now I've been teaching herbal formulas for, again, almost 30 years. 0:22 I'm very familiar and I looked at it and said this might kill you. 0:26 She said really? 0:28 Hi and welcome to The Balancing Point. 0:35 functional medicine and integrative health simple, practical and fun. 0:42 So you can restore balance, boost vitality and enjoy a healthier life every single day. 0:50 Hello and welcome to another edition of The Balancing Point. 0:53 This is Dr. 0:54 John Needers here with you. 0:56 And today I want to talk about something that's very near and dear to my heart. 1:01 It's the good, the bad and the ugly. 1:04 of AI and medicine. 1:06 So I now get about five times the number of emails that I used to get because people will look up anything I give to them or recommend to then on AI, 1:16 and then have dozens of questions based on whatever AI tells them.
AI in medicine: content vs context 1:22 That can get frustrating just from a time aspect. 1:26 I'm totally fine if people look things up and have questions about them, et cetera. 1:31 But what I have found, and I've seen this many times, is that it's hard for people to understand the difference between content and context, 1:43 right? 1:43 AI gives content. 1:45 Usually pretty accurate, but it is completely dependent on how you ask the questions. 1:50 Like we will go in, we use AI all the time. 1:53 But we'll go in and try asking the question several different ways just to make sure it's understanding what we want. 2:01 And so it can be very helpful in that way. 2:05 You know, I could dig through a textbook for 15 minutes looking at the number of molecules of ATP that are produced from one molecule of glucose. 2:16 Or I can ask AI and they'll have an answer for me in about two minutes. 2:20 Now I have enough background and context and information that I know if what they're saying is accurate, right? 2:28 Because I will know within a very close parameter the answer to whatever questions that i'm asking. 2:35 So like NADH. 2:38 I looked that up this morning because I couldn't remember what one of the letters stood for. 2:43 And so that can be really quick and really powerful, but I can tell the difference because a long background and context in medicine, 2:52 anatomy, physiology, and I've taught nutrition for about three decades. 2:56 So for me, it's easy for to put things together with context. 3:02 I had a couple patients last week who had created their own diet plan. 3:07 Fine, absolutely. 3:09 When I questioned them about why you make this decision, it was clear they had no idea. 3:15 And in my opinion, their plan was actually a bad plan. 3:20 It was incorrect. 3:21 But they were very fixated on their AI answer. 3:25 So I let them have that. 3:26 I mean, they're it's their money. 3:29 But I did point out that I didn't agree with it. 3:32 But what I noticed that was really amazing is how little they understand, like the one patient had no chemistry background, 3:40 no a nutritional background, et cetera. 3:43 And she thought AI was telling her to take certain things at the same time and to never take things certain at same.
Why context matters in lab interpretation 3:50 I could tell it was the way she asked the question. 3:53 But we had a fun example here in our office. 3:55 Catherine, my friend and associate, who is very good at doing AI searches now, had her labs done, which she and I have our labs quite frequently just so 4:05 we can spot trends early. 4:07 So she uploaded her and got an answer. 4:12 And then she realized, oh, I didn't tell AI that I have had a severe mold problem and I still have a great sensitivity to mold. 4:21 So she added that to her questions. 4:23 They came back with a formula. 4:26 Catherine said, to me, what do you think about this formula? 4:29 Now I've been teaching herbal formulas for, again, almost 30 years, so I'm very familiar. 4:36 I looked at it and said this format might kill you. 4:39 And she said, really? 4:41 And I said yeah, this formula is to dry you out. 4:45 And if you knew Katherine, you would know that she's too dry already. 4:49 When she takes drying medicinal herbs, it makes her feel horrible. 4:53 Well this was an entire huge formula of very, very drying herbs that would have at least made her very bad. 5:02 That's context, okay? 5:04 Each of those steps adds a little bit more context to the equation. 5:10 And I think it's fine to the people that look things up and they want to add it to their repertoire, but often there's a lot more context to know what 5:20 is going to be good for you and what isn't. 5:23 And basically, this all boils down to what's called the Dunning-Kruger effect. 5:28 There were two social scientists, David Duning and Justin Kruger, who back in the 1999, I wrote a paper about this effect. 5:39 And essentially, it's people with low knowledge or skill in a particular area may overestimate how competent they are, because they think that's all there 5:50 is to know. 5:50 Where people that are competent, extremely competent may underestimate their ability because they think anybody, since they can do it, 5:59 anybody else can.
Dunning-Kruger effect and overconfidence 6:00 And this was the case with me when I was younger. 6:02 I had a very strong ability at arithmetic, right? 6:07 I could add, subtract, divide, in my head, any huge numbers, I would do running baseball stats, every time a player would come to bat, 6:16 i would re-evaluate their batting average in head etc. 6:20 Well I kind of assumed everybody could do that, and one day I'm driving down the street with my wife and she's going, What's $329.87 minus $22.20? And 6:32 she keeps asking me these questions. 6:34 And finally, I glanced over and I see that she's having me do her checkbook. 6:37 I can do it faster in my head than she could do calculating it, right? 6:42 So you see these things where Another example for me is I've been teaching, as I said, nutrition for at least 30 years. 6:52 And what I know is that I don't know everything. 6:56 I there are many people out there that are much brighter, much wiser in different aspects of nutrition than I am. 7:04 So I respect that. 7:06 And I don't assume I'm the best because I am not the the. 7:09 Whereas someone with much less understanding than I have might assume that they're the, that know all there is to know. 7:16 And so that's the basis of the Dunning-Kruger effect. 7:20 That people that are quite competent may underestimate their ability and people who are incompetent may overestimate their abilities. 7:28 This is what I see with AI because it gives people just enough content to get them in trouble often. 7:35 Now, some things, it's fine, you know. 7:38 One example that comes up is The stock market. 7:42 I don't do the stock markets because I do not understand the stocks market with any sophisticated level of understanding. 7:49 So I just stay away from it. 7:52 You know, we might have some investments going through some other channel with people that do know what they are doing. 7:58 But it is very easy and I have seen this many times with my patients where they will come up with a new idea, a couple of them invested in trust deeds 8:06 and a Many went into the stock market. 8:09 Some did sports betting. 8:11 Well, each of those areas requires a great deal of expertise. 8:16 I mean, to think someone's going to to beat, to outdo professional gamblers who that's their entire life and they have huge supercomputers. 8:26 They know every bit of information about every team way before the average person can have it. 8:31 So to bet against that, well, be careful. 8:34 I mean, definitely don't bet any money you can't afford to lose. 8:37 It can be fun to bed on a team that you want to win and you could root for them.
Using AI carefully and closing remarks 8:41 But hoping to make a living at that is not very reasonable. 8:45 The stock market though, I see a lot. 8:47 People read a book on the stockmarket and they know everything. 8:52 Actually, this happened to me when I was in my 20s. 8:55 I'd been a professional poker player and I did a significant amount of gambling on different things as I wasn't a group of friends that we all did. 9:04 We'd occasionally go out and play the horses. 9:06 So I found a new book, on horse racing systems. 9:10 And the first time I put it into play, I won seven out of nine races. 9:16 That's insane. 9:18 But I didn't know better. 9:19 So I've got the perfect system. 9:22 I kept betting. 9:24 Because I was too incompetent. 9:28 The people are out at the track with their stopwatches. 9:32 They're paying off. 9:33 people to give them inside information. 9:35 And I was just reading in the newspaper. 9:38 So these can be dangerous. 9:40 Make sure that you have enough context to go along with any content that you're going to act out on. 9:48 In fact, there's some interesting memes. 9:50 I think they're not very nice, but it talks about going from Mount Stupid to the Valley of Despair. 9:57 So the people that think that they know everything and don't, to people like me, I guess, that can despair because I don t know enough ever about anything. 10:07 And so I'm constantly working to realize more things. 10:12 So anyway, I just want to thank you and urge you to be a little careful, be little cautious with AI. 10:17 It can be great tool, but it should not be over relied on. 10:21 Thanks. 10:22 Talk to you soon. 10:23 Thank you for joining me on The Balancing Point. 10:26 If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. 10:34 Feeling out of balance? 10:36 Most approaches just manage symptoms. 10:39 Here we get to the root. 10:41 So real healing, real clarity and balance can begin. 10:47 Visit alamedaacupuncture.com. 10:50 That's alamedaacupuncture dot com to learn more, explore our supplements or book a call. 10:57 We'd love to hear from you.
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