From day one, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made “radical transparency” a top priority, while promising to dramatically reform public health with the help of artificial intelligence. Today, the only thing seemingly transparent is that he’s failing to live up to his promise. After setting an “aggressive timeline” for incorporating the latest AI technology, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — the HHS agency responsible for food safety and the safety and effectiveness of drugs and medical devices — launched Elsa, its new AI assistant. Tasked with the cumbersome job of reviewing clinical protocols, highlighting scientific reviews and streamlining other steps in the drug-approval process, Elsa was touted by top officials as a “dynamic force” that would usher in “the AI era at the FDA.” What it ushered in instead was chaos and confusion. After Elsa’s June launch, FDA employees were alarmed to find that it regularly made mistakes and routinely mischaracterized findings from clinical trials. Some claimed the assistant hallucinated and “was making stuff up” when summarizing documents. FDA officials have asserted this isn’t true. An HHS official insisted the employees’ statements were “taken out of context” and came from “disgruntled former employees and sources who have never even used the current version of Elsa.”

Full opinion : U.S. HHS appears to be using artificial intelligence that isn’t ready or appropriate for the task.