Another Google Apology Coming? Sure, It Is Just Medical Info. Meh

August 22, 2025

Dino 5 18 25No AI. Just a dinobaby and a steam-powered computer in rural Kentucky.

Another day and more surprising Mad Magazine type of smart software stories. I noted this essay as a cocktail party anecdote particularly when doctors are chatting with me: “Doctors Horrified After Google’s Healthcare AI Makes Up a Body Part That Does Not Exist in Humans.”

Okay, guys like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo dissected cadavers in order to get a first-hand, hands on and hands in sense of what was in a human body. However, Google’s smart software does not require any of that visceral human input. The much hyped systems developed by Google’s wizards just use fancy math and predict what it knows and what a human needs to answer a question. Simple, eh.

The cited write up says:

One glaring error proved so persuasive that it took over a year to be caught. In their May 2024 research paper introducing a healthcare AI model, dubbed Med-Gemini, Google researchers showed off the AI analyzing brain scans from the radiology lab for various conditions. It identified an “old left basilar ganglia infarct,” referring to a purported part of the brain — “basilar ganglia” — that simply doesn’t exist in the human body. Board-certified neurologist Bryan Moore flagged the issue to The Verge, highlighting that Google fixed its blog post about the AI — but failed to revise the research paper itself.

Big deal or not? The write up points out:

… in a hospital setting, those kinds of slip-ups could have devastating consequences. While Google’s faux pas more than likely didn’t result in any danger to human patients, it sets a worrying precedent, experts argue.

Several observations:

  1. Smart software will just improve. Look at ChatGPT 5, it is doing wonders even though rumor has it that OpenAI is going to make ChatGPT4o available again. Progress.
  2. Google will apologize and rework the system so it does not make this specific medical misstep again. Yep, rules based smart software. How tenable is that? Just consider how that worked for AskJeeves years ago.
  3. Ask yourself the question, “Do I want Google-infused smart software to replace my harried personal physician?”

Net net: Great anecdote for a cocktail party. I bet those doctors will find me very amusing.

Stephen E Arnold, August 22, 2025

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