AI Is Already Here. The Real Risk In Public Health Is Sitting It Out
AI Is Already Here. The Real Risk In Public Health Is Sitting It Out
https://www.forbes.com/sites/briancastrucci/2026/04/20/ai-isnt-the-threat—our-hesitation-is/
Publish Date: 2026-04-20 22:47:00
Source Domain: www.forbes.com
Electronic brain and Concept of artificial intelligence(AI).Graphic of a digital brain and Human head outline made from circuit board, connecting on dark blue background.
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When Bernie Sanders warned in an April 2 Wall Street Journal op-ed that artificial intelligence is “a threat to everything the American people hold dear,” he gave voice to a real and growing unease. Americans are worried about jobs, power, misinformation and what all this means for how we live and relate to one another. But framing AI primarily as a threat doesn’t just reflect public sentiment. It reinforces a kind of paralysis at exactly the moment when engagement matters most.
Because here’s the contradiction: Americans are already using AI, even as they say they don’t trust it. More than half report using it for research, and many are using it for writing, work and analysis — yet only about one in five say they trust AI-generated information most of the time. That’s not rejection. It’s adoption with hesitation. And left unaddressed, hesitation tends to harden into disengagement.
You can see that dynamic clearly in the public health field. This is a profession that has every reason to be careful — high stakes, sensitive data, real-world consequences. But caution has a way of blurring into avoidance. While public health professionals debate AI in broad, abstract terms, other sectors are already building it into how decisions are made and how information is delivered. If public health leaders wait for certainty, they won’t be shaping those systems. They will be inheriting them.
The question isn’t whether AI poses risks. It’s whether we are prepared to use it well. That’s a different conversation, and it’s a more practical one. In real-world settings, AI is already doing work that the public health field often struggles to do at scale: translating complex guidance into plain language, adapting messages for different audiences, generating drafts during fast-moving…
