Black Americans Are Turning to AI for Health Advice. We Want to Hear Why.

Key points

• The Guardian is gathering first-hand accounts from Black Americans who use AI for health or spiritual guidance.
• Black people in the US have faced documented, systemic racism inside the healthcare system for generations.
• AI-generated social media influencers, digital personas created entirely by artificial intelligence, are among the sources people are turning to.
• The callout focuses on AI-generated influencers who present as Black and speak to health or spiritual topics.

Trust takes a long time to build and very little time to break. For many Black Americans, trust in the medical system broke long ago.

Now, a growing number of people are filling that gap with AI tools: chatbots, software you type questions to and receive written answers from, and AI-generated social media influencers, digital personalities that look and sound human but are created entirely by artificial intelligence. The Guardian is collecting stories from Black Americans who've consulted these tools for health questions or spiritual guidance, asking what draws people to AI-generated Black influencers and what they get back. Worth noting here: we reported in July that OpenAI's ChatGPT health feature rolled out to all U.S. Adults one day after a lawsuit accused it of nearly killing someone with bad medical advice.

Why does this matter for ordinary people?

For patients who've been dismissed or misdiagnosed because of racial bias, an AI that simply answers without prejudice can feel like relief. That reaction is understandable. It also carries real risk.

AI chatbots don't have access to your medical history. They can produce confident-sounding answers that are wrong. A nurse who has seen a wound knows things no chatbot can. Dismissing the trend misses the point, though: if people are routing around doctors, the question worth asking is why the doctors lost them.

What are AI-generated influencers, exactly?

Think of a social media account posting wellness advice, fronted by a person who appears in photos and videos but was built by software, not born. These accounts exist on most major platforms. Some disclose that the persona is artificial; many don't.

When that persona is visibly Black and speaks to health topics, it can feel culturally familiar to an audience that has historically been ignored or harmed by mainstream medicine. Researchers and journalists are only beginning to map how widespread this is.

What should you do if you use AI for health questions?

Using a chatbot to understand a diagnosis or find questions worth asking your doctor is reasonable. Relying on one instead of a doctor isn't.

If you distrust your current provider, that distrust may be well-founded. Seeking a second opinion from another human clinician, or finding a community health centre with staff who reflect your background, is safer than an AI influencer whose creator and funding you can't verify.

Common questions

Is it safe to ask an AI about my health?

Using AI to learn general information or prepare for a doctor's visit is low-risk. Using it to diagnose yourself or decide whether to take medication isn't: AI tools can produce plausible but incorrect answers, and they have no knowledge of your personal history.

How can I tell if a social media health influencer is AI-generated?

Look for disclosures in the account bio or individual posts. AI-generated faces often have perfectly symmetrical features and backgrounds that blur oddly. If an account never ages and never references a specific life event, treat its advice with extra caution.