People with certain illnesses – such as schizophrenia, depression, and AIDS – can face stigma that makes it more difficult to get a job, receive appropriate medical care, or just interact with others. Now, a new study finds such health conditions can trigger subtle but potentially damaging discrimination from another source: artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots that are playing a growing role in everything from hiring to health care. Researchers found that popular large language models (LLMs) often produce stigmatizing statements when provided with information about a person’s health. The findings, published on 6 July, 2026 in Nature Health, add to growing evidence that AI models can help perpetuate – rather than eliminate – harmful stereotypes.

Overall, the LLMs were from 13 to 17 times more likely to produce a negative story for a character with health conditions than for a healthy one. The models were less biased than humans: When the researchers presented the same scenarios to 399 people, they were up to 23 times more likely to write a negative story for characters with health conditions. Still, the results suggest LLMs, while filtering out some stigma, were mimicking human biases embedded in their training materials.
 

Source https://www.science.org/content/article/chatbots-can-help-perpetuate-stigma-around-certain-health-conditions

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