Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 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 and pesticides. But last week the leader of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement threw his support behind an unlikely industry: artificial intelligence . ” “We’re never ever again going to be able to be dominated by public officials who tell us: ‘Trust the experts,'” Kennedy told the invite-only audience. Some prominent MAHA voices quickly criticized Kennedy’s embrace of AI, saying the movement’s leaders are increasingly cozying up to the corporate interests they once scrutinized. At the same time, medical experts say Kennedy’s vision of AI as a check against the medical establishment is fundamentally flawed . “He obviously doesn’t understand how AI works,” said Dr. Zeke Emanuel, a cancer specialist and bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. “AI aggregates the information we have in the medical literature and in case studies. ” Both OpenAI and Anthropic offer health-focused chatbots 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. “He wants AI to mimic what he says,” Emanuel said. ” HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard said Emanuel was describing “one narrow use” of the technology. Kennedy wants to give Americans more control of their own health data by using AI “to help them understand it, interrogate it, compare it with the evidence, and make better decisions with their doctors,” Hilliard said.