Elon Musk asked people to upload their medical data to X so his AI company could learn to interpret MRIs and CT scans
Health care experts are worried about Grok’s potential to breach patient privacy.
In Elon Musk’s world, AI is the new MD. The X owner is encouraging users to upload their medical test results—such as CT and bone scans—to the platform so that Grok, X’s artificial intelligence chatbot, can learn how to interpret them efficiently.
He’s previously said this information will be used to train X’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok on how to interpret them efficiently.
Earlier this month, Elon Musk reposted a video on X of himself talking about uploading medical data to Grok, saying: “Try it!”
“You can upload your X-rays or MRI images to Grok and it will give you a medical diagnosis,” Musk said in the video, which was uploaded in June. “I have seen cases where it’s actually better than what doctors tell you.
In 2024, Musk said medical images uploaded to Grok would be used to train the bot.
“This is still early stage, but it is already quite accurate and will become extremely good,” Musk wrote on X. “Let us know where Grok gets it right or needs work.”
Musk also claimed in his response Grok saved a man in Norway by diagnosing a problem his doctors failed to notice. The X owner was willing to upload his own medical information to his bot.
“I did an MRI recently and submitted it to Grok,” Musk said in an episode of the Moonshots with Peter Diamandis podcast released on Tuesday. “None of the doctors nor Grok found anything.”
Musk did not disclose in the podcast why he received an MRI. XAI, which owns X, told Fortune in a statement: “Legacy Media Lies.”
Grok is facing some competition in the AI health space. This week OpenAI launched ChatGPT Health, an experience within the bot feature that allows users to securely connect medical records and wellness apps like MyFitnessPal and Apple Health. The company said it would not train the models using personal medical information.
AI chatbots have become a ubiquitous source of medical information for people. OpenAI reported this week 40 million people seek health information from the model, 55% of which used to bot to look up or better understand symptoms.