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WASHINGTON — <\/span>Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a> has built a national following by channeling the energy of Americans who are worried about the influence of corporations, including makers of vaccines, drugs, processed foods<\/a>and pesticides<\/a>.<\/p>\n But last week the leader of the \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d movement<\/a> threw his support behind an unlikely industry: artificial intelligence<\/a>.<\/p>\n At a MAHA summit featuring AI and Silicon Valley executives, Kennedy declared that the technology<\/a> would free Americans from \u201cmedical tyranny\u201d by allowing them to \u201cfact check their own medical advice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re never ever again going to be able to be dominated by public officials who tell us: \u2018Trust the experts,\u2019\u201d Kennedy told the invite-only audience.<\/p>\n Some prominent MAHA voices quickly criticized Kennedy\u2019s embrace of AI, saying the movement’s leaders are increasingly cozying up to the corporate interests they once scrutinized. <\/p>\n At the same time, medical experts say Kennedy\u2019s vision of AI as a check against the medical establishment is fundamentally flawed.<\/p>\n \u201cHe obviously doesn\u2019t understand how AI works,\u201d said Dr. Zeke Emanuel, a cancer specialist and bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. \u201cAI aggregates the information we have in the medical literature and in case studies. And that means what you\u2019re actually getting is medical expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n Both OpenAI<\/a> and Anthropic<\/a> offer health-focused chatbots<\/a> that can analyze users’ medical records and answer their healthcare questions. Their models are trained on thousands of peer-reviewed medical papers and professional guidelines and incorporate feedback from doctors.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wants AI to mimic what he says,\u201d Emanuel said. \u201cBut that\u2019s not what good AI is going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard said Emanuel was describing \u201cone narrow use\u201d of the technology.<\/p>\n Kennedy wants to give Americans more control of their own health data by using AI \u201cto help them understand it, interrogate it, compare it with the evidence, and make better decisions with their doctors,\u201d Hilliard said. The technology will help doctors work faster, giving them \u201cmore time to treat and care for patients,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n OpenAI and Anthropic were among the sponsors of last week\u2019s MAHA Summit. So were more than a dozen other companies with pending business before the U.S. government, including developers of psychedelic drugs<\/a>, fitness wearables and an experimental cancer test<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sponsors paid up to $300,000 and many received speaking slots on panels that included some of the administration\u2019s top health officials, including Dr. Mehmet Oz of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was classic pay-to-play,\u201d said Dr. Robert Malone, a vaccine researcher who has questioned the safety of mRNA shots and recently served on a federal vaccine panel under Kennedy.<\/p>\n Malone and other figures in the MAHA movement say the summit showed how big companies are replacing the \u201cMAHA moms\u201d and other grassroots activists who originally powered the movement.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was no representation of people that have been at the core of MAHA and its creation, whether it be physicians or patients or patient advocates,\u201d Malone said.<\/p>\n The summit was organized by MAHA Center Inc., one of a number of nongovernment groups run by Kennedy associates that are dedicated to promoting his agenda. Others include the MAHA Institute, a think tank, and MAHA PAC, a political fundraising operation.<\/p>\n Tony Lyons, a publisher who runs the MAHA Center, MAHA PAC and several related groups, addressed criticisms about corporate sponsorships at a reception ahead of the summit.<\/p>\n \u201cThe truth is we\u2019re trying to build the biggest movement we can possibly build to actually get things done,\u201d Lyons said.<\/p>\n Kennedy’s alliance with Silicon Valley is consistent with broader efforts across the Trump administration.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump has vigorously resisted efforts<\/a> to bring greater oversight to AI companies, who have helped drive the stock market to record highs. One of Trump\u2019s first actions after returning to the White House was revoking a Biden administration executive order on AI oversight. It took the administration more than 16 months to replace it with its own order.<\/p>\n In recent weeks, Trump announced a move to let the AI industry police itself<\/a>, tried to rebrand the technology as \u201csuper intelligence\u201d and brushed aside<\/a> bipartisan concerns about the impacts of data centers on nearby residents.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Dr. Oz and other administration officials have touted AI<\/a> as the answer to a litany of U.S. health problems, including rising medical costs, healthcare fraud<\/a>, physician shortages and the shuttering of rural hospitals.<\/a><\/p>\n Medicare officials have been in discussions with several medical chatbot companies, including one behind a Utah program<\/a> that provides AI-enabled refills of prescriptions.<\/p>\n The remarks from Kennedy and other officials last week reflect a \u201ctechno-utopian\u201d view of AI\u2019s potential benefits, says Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law School bioethics expert.<\/p>\n Cohen notes that much of RFK\u2019s agenda over the past year has focused on trying to curb food industry practices he views as harmful to consumers, including the use of artificial colors and undeclared chemical additives. Given Kennedy’s skepticism of \u201cbig food,\u201d Cohen said he was surprised the health secretary didn’t see \u201cthe risk that market incentives may diverge from the public good.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the most prominent MAHA organizations are actively organizing against AI interests.<\/p>\n For example, Moms Across America operates local and national campaigns warning against pollution, water use and electricity costs associated with data center construction<\/a>. The group was founded by Zen Honeycutt, a former staffer for Kennedy\u2019s presidential campaign.<\/p>\n Moms Across America did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n AI experts don\u2019t dispute that the technology will fundamentally change how doctors and patients approach medical decisions.<\/p>\n Kennedy is correct when he says AI will empower patients with more insights about their health, says Dr. Robert Wachter, a medical technology expert at University of California, San Francisco. But AI adoption is likely to further bolster the recommendations of medical professionals, rather than the contrarian views often favored by Kennedy, according to Wachter.<\/p>\n \u201cDemocratization is good,\u201d Wachter said. \u201cBut that means disseminating the best science we have, which generally means science created by people who know what they\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n Experts disagree over how soon AI may be able to take over decision-making from physicians. <\/p>\n Several recent studies have found that AI alone outperformed doctors working alone or doctors working with AI on critical decisions. But those studies generally presented AI with detailed, written scenarios to solve \u2014 the equivalent of a medical exam.<\/p>\n When researchers looked at how patients interact with AI in real-time they found a number of problems: People often don\u2019t provide enough information for the AI to correctly diagnose their medical issue and chatbots often respond with a combination of good and bad advice.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to figure out in real life: Do these things actually work?\u201d Wachter said. \u201cWhat actually happens when they\u2019re used in circumstances where people are under stress or don\u2019t know how to interpret the outputs?\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 health and science coverage receives financial support from the AP Fund for Journalism<\/a> and private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n