New Delhi: Nearly 66 per cent of young adults use AI to look up information and get medical advice, found a recent study. Among the participants, over 32 per reported using ChatGPT and other such chatbots for research on substance-use.
The study, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, by researchers at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, used survey data from nearly 1,000 participants to understand how often people turned to AI for information about substance-use. They also asked participants what they thought of AI’s responses.
“Using these tools can lead to misinformed or otherwise risky substance-use behavior among young people, who are the age group most affected by adverse effects of substance use,” lead author Mireia Triguero Roura, a postdoctoral researcher at Rutgers, said in a statement.
According to the study, 1 in 3 people aged 18 to 29 reported using AI to search for substance-related information. Many of them were trying to inform themselves about the risks and consequences of using a substance. Researchers said this was a worrying trend, especially since AI chatbots can produce misinformation.
What is even more alarming is that half the respondents who use AI for such research said they would do so at least once a month. The authors also found that Black and male participants were more likely to use AI for this purpose.
“The observed disparities in who chooses to use AI for drug-related inquiries could reflect differences in healthcare access, stigma, trust, and health information-seeking behaviors,” said Triguero Roura.
Based on their findings researchers highlight that generative AI and chatbots might just be “shaping the substance-use ecosystem among young adults”. This comes at a time when large language models (LLMs) are now becoming the new way that young adults, especially people aged 18 to 19 search for information.
Looking up information regarding drugs and other substances through unreliable sources is particularly dangerous since substance use peaks in young adulthood. Research shows that from 2018 to 2024, drugs or alcohol accounted for 25 per cent of young adult mortality.