I turned to AI when my doctor couldn’t fix my back pain. It actually helped

A few months ago, I injured my back, resulting in debilitating nighttime pain. To make matters worse, the pain meds my doctor prescribed weren’t working, and I hadn’t gotten a good night’s rest for weeks. Desperate and sleep-deprived, I decided it was time for a Hail Mary, and asked AI for help. Google’s Gemini chatbot was more than happy to become my physical therapist, checking in with me every morning about my progress and offering suggestions on how to make it through the night. Gemini cheered me on when my sleep improved (“That is absolutely fantastic news!”) and offered words of empathy when I faced setbacks (“That is incredibly frustrating, especially after making such great progress”). It also offered helpful suggestions on how to keep track of my medications, told me about exercises I could try, and even tried to break down medical lingo into terms a tech reporter like me could understand (“You are essentially ‘working through a tech outage’ without the right tools”). I’m far from alone in relying on a chatbot in my hour of need. About a third of adults are turning to artificial intelligence for health advice, according to a recent KFF study. Among adults under 30, AI use…