Speaking at a Make America Healthy Again event on Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. opened a "fireside chat" with Vice President JD Vance on artificial intelligence — a topic Ars notes surprised Vance, who said he had expected to discuss "weight loss and acid, not AI."
Kennedy, who has no medical, scientific or public health experience, argued that AI would liberate Americans from what he called the "medical tyranny" of doctors and health experts. He urged people to use AI for second opinions, claiming it is "better informed than any doctor in the country," and predicted chatbots would vindicate his contrarian positions on masks, social distancing and vaccines — including the claim that vaccines do not prevent transmission or infection.
Ars put the prediction to the test, asking Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT whether masks work, whether social distancing works, and whether vaccines prevent transmission and infection. Both models answered with the mainstream scientific consensus, caveats included: masks reduce the spread of respiratory disease depending on quality, fit and adherence; social distancing is an effective public health measure; and vaccines can prevent infection and transmission, though the degree of protection varies by vaccine and disease.
The results knock back Kennedy's suggestion that AI would immediately line up behind his views — and, Ars notes, they also undercut his claim that chatbots are "better informed" than clinicians.
Kennedy acknowledged AI has "some downsides," and quoted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as saying it "would be malpractice for a doctor to make a diagnosis or to make a prescription without at least checking AI."
The event itself drew criticism from within the MAHA movement: held at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C., it was sponsored in part by OpenAI and Anthropic, with sponsorship packages reportedly sold for up to $300,000, and it featured insurance giants UnitedHealth and Elevance, drugmakers, a psychedelics panel and telehealth company Hims & Hers. Robert Malone, a fringe scientist and former Kennedy ally, wrote that "the incestuous nature of MAHA is becoming harder to ignore."
