MIT Technology Review January 23, 2026
Plus: how wastewater tracking could help curb measles’ rise in the US.
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
“Dr. Google” had its issues. Can ChatGPT Health do better?
For the past two decades, there’s been a clear first step for anyone who starts experiencing new medical symptoms: Look them up online. The practice was so common that it gained the pejorative moniker “Dr. Google.” But times are changing, and many medical-information seekers are now using LLMs. According to OpenAI, 230 million people ask ChatGPT health-related queries each week.
That’s the context around the launch of OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Health...
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