I tested America.gov, the government's AI chatbot, on health questions
Summary
The U.S. government launched America.gov, an AI chatbot that provides answers to health questions using official federal sources. The chatbot’s responses reflect conflicting official information on topics such as vaccines, showing the challenge when government agencies do not fully agree on scientific matters.Key Facts
- America.gov is a government AI chatbot created to give clear answers using data from about 29,000 government websites.
- The chatbot uses AI technologies called Gemini and xAI’s Grok but does not disclose detailed technical info.
- Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sees AI as a tool for better medical advice and challenges to expert opinions.
- The chatbot showed different official CDC pages giving conflicting views on whether vaccines cause autism, without choosing a side.
- It tries to use the most recent official government sources or the agency in charge to decide which answer to give.
- The chatbot failed to account for a federal court order that paused the CDC’s December 2025 recommendation against giving hepatitis B shots at birth.
- Kennedy replaced the CDC vaccine advisory committee in 2025; the new committee voted to remove the hepatitis B birth shot recommendation.
- A federal judge reversed this change, restoring the previous vaccine schedule including the birth dose, but the chatbot did not reflect this court ruling.
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