Elon Musk’s request for patients to upload medical data to Grok is irresponsible

The news: Users of X (formerly Twitter) are submitting their medical images to Grok, the genAI chatbot developed by xAI, per the NYT.

Patients are doing this in response to a recent X post from Elon Musk, who told users to experiment with uploading their medical images to Grok for analysis. Musk wrote that Grok is in the “early stage” and is “already quite accurate and will become extremely good.”

But, why? Well-trained AI tools do have the ability to comb through X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs faster—and potentially more accurately—than radiologists.

Some users who uploaded their medical scans to Grok gave positive feedback, but others spotted glaring mistakes.

• One user shared that Grok misidentified a broken clavicle as a dislocated shoulder.
• A medical expert who took Musk up on his request shared that Grok mistook a mammogram of a benign breast cyst for an image of testicles.

Patient privacy at stake: Social media platforms and genAI chatbots like Grok are not covered entities under HIPAA. The federal law that protects patient data from being shared without consent generally applies to doctors, health insurers, and business associates they work with.

Companies not covered under HIPAA that get access to patient information could sell the data or use it without consequence. However, the NYT noted that X does not aim to collect sensitive personal information.

To be sure, people can submit medical images to other publicly available genAI tools such as Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

• But those platforms aren’t encouraging users to share their medical data like Musk is with Grok.
• In fact, OpenAI’s FAQ page for ChatGPT clarifies that its AI model is not suitable for interpreting specialized medical images like CT scans.

Our take: We think it’s irresponsible for Musk—with over 200 million followers on X—to ask users of his social platform to be guinea pigs for Grok in an effort to make it more accurate with medical image interpretation. Grok isn’t well enough trained on medical data and flawed analysis could create a host of problems for patients.

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