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Article . 2026
License: CC BY SA
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Article . 2026
License: CC BY SA
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Article . 2026
License: CC BY SA
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Article . 2026
License: CC BY SA
Data sources: Datacite
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The imaginary patient. Fantastic health data and where to find them

Authors: Tafani, Daniela;

The imaginary patient. Fantastic health data and where to find them

Abstract

In the name of an upcoming AI revolution in healthcare and of chatbots and ‘agentic AI’ allegedly capable of providing health advice, the US, international institutions, and the European Commission are pushing for the digitisation of clinical and health data. Unfortunately, ‘digitisation’ is just a new name for mass surveillance, there is no such a thing as ‘agentic AI’ and those surveilling us are not interested in making healthcare more accessible or personalised, which would simply require hiring more healthcare personnel. At best, a machine learning system capable of tracking correlations can be an auxiliary tool in medicine. An extruder of probable text strings can only make us imagine that we are in a doctor–patient relationship, since a doctor's job certainly does not consist of auto-completing their patients' sentences. A chatbot is therefore both useless and dangerous, if the objective is healthcare. However, a private healthcare company whose goal is to increase quarterly dividends may consider a chatbot to be a useful cost-reduction tool. Within an instrumental rationality, a healthcare company may find it rational to replace doctors with chatbots, just as it would find it rational to feed prisoners dog food if it ran a prison. After all, financial analysts who think in terms of business logic are seriously asking themselves whether treating patients is a sustainable business model. Announcements of an AI-based healthcare revolution have no scientific basis. They are deeply rooted in sectors that are heavily funded by the pharmaceutical industry and technology companies. Here, the interest in promises of automation, in dehumanising patients, in commodifying health and in destroying public healthcare systems converge with the surveillance, control, manipulation and domination goals of the US military–industrial complex. Even if it cannot cure us, generative AI is perfect for all these purposes.

Related Organizations
Keywords

Surveillance, Biosurveillance, Generative AI, Clinical data, AI Healthcare, Healthcare chatbots, Healthcare data

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
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