LLMs and flat feet

Now you can have a good second opinion on a medical diagnosis on your phone.

I rode a road bike for four years straight. Hundreds of miles if not thousands. I enjoyed every bit. It afforded me the luxury of dealing with my inner demons by being out without a worry in the world. Eckhart Toole was on to something in his seminal work, The Power of Now. I witnessed it first hand while cycling, mostly alone but also in groups.

The only negative part was that I came out of with a bad back. Years of cycling in a hunched position required work on my core muscles which I eschewed. Hence, weak lower and mid back muscles. To this day, I have to go into regular physiotherapy to keep my back from getting stiff or having a spasm.

Years ago when I found the right physiotherapist, I was told for the first time in my life that I have flat feet. I was told to wear special insoles with arch support. And so I began taking out stock insoles from my shoes and using a set of special purpose insoles with arch support.

A month back I was traveling with two colleagues for a conference. At an Airbnb, one of them, on the topic of insoles and flat feet, said my feet had an arch and weren’t flat. I didn’t think too much of that then. But the thought stayed.

And so I decided to seek second and third opinions from different LLMs. I took a picture of my left foot without putting weight on it and asked ChatGPT whether it looked flat. Here’s what it told me:

Sure enough, it made sense. When I provided it with a foot of my foot while bearing my weight it identified it as flat.

I didn’t know that much about my feet. The physiotherapist did mention I had flat feet but didn’t explain that in weight bearing position the small arch on my foot disappears.

Then, I asked Gemini, giving it the same pictures. It agreed with ChatGPT. It also gave a name of my condition: flexible flat feet. Now that made more sense.

I ran an experiment where I removed my special insoles and went back to using stock insoles in my New Balance shoes. The soft stock insoles made the shoes more comfortable. But after a week, I could feel pain in my knees and ankles while climbing stairs. Then I went to play Padel while wearing the stock insoles. And it hurt. ChatGPT and Gemini explained above very well why.

Maybe this explains why I have always sucked at running all my life. I thought it had something to do with my changing weight over the years.

You learn something new everyday!