Google’s Revolutionary AI Chatbot Shaking Up Healthcare in Testing Phase
In a groundbreaking development, Google’s Med-PaLM 2, an advanced tool utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to provide medical information, has commenced testing at renowned medical institutions, including the Mayo Clinic research hospital. The Wall Street Journal has revealed that Med-PaLM 2, an evolved version of PaLM 2, initially unveiled at Google I/O in May, is currently in the experimental stage. PaLM 2 serves as the fundamental language model supporting Google’s widely known AI, Bard.
According to an internal email reviewed by the WSJ, Google envisions the updated model to be particularly advantageous in countries facing challenges of limited access to healthcare professionals. Med-PaLM 2 underwent training using a meticulously curated collection of medical expert demonstrations, leading Google to anticipate enhanced conversational capabilities compared to general chatbots like Bard, Bing, and ChatGPT.
Furthermore, the article highlights a May research publication (pdf) by Google, which acknowledges that Med-PaLM 2 still encounters accuracy issues similar to those frequently observed in large-scale language models. Medical practitioners participating in the study reported more inaccuracies and irrelevant information in the responses generated by Google’s Med-PaLM and Med-PaLM 2 compared to their human counterparts
Nonetheless, when evaluating various metrics such as demonstrating logical reasoning, providing consensus-supported answers, and avoiding incorrect comprehension, Med-PaLM 2 performed comparably to real physicians.
The WSJ’s report also mentions that customers involved in the Med-PaLM 2 testing phase will retain full control over their encrypted data, with Google having no access to it.
According to a report by The WSJ, Med-PaLM 2 is currently in its early stages, as stated by Greg Corrado, the senior research director at Google. While expressing reservations about integrating it into his own family’s healthcare journey, Corrado firmly believes that Med-PaLM 2 amplifies the potential benefits of AI in healthcare by an astonishing tenfold.