AI: Google is preparing a chatbot for hospitals

The tool developed by the American giant seems to produce satisfactory results, capable of providing significant support to patients and healthcare teams. However, it fails to play an important role in medical pathways.

Generative AI offers many possibilities. When it came to imagining a practical use for programs such as ChatGPT, it was considered to be used in medical contexts, for example to engage in an initial round of Q&A with patients.

A medical variant of Bard

Google and its parent company, Alphabet, have been aiming for several years to establish themselves in the health sector. If innovations such as the detection of skin problems thanks to Lens are on the agenda, the company also wishes to address professionals through its Google Health platform. It is through this channel that it has been testing for a few months, in collaboration with the American research hospital Mayo Clinic, what could be described as a medical variant of Bard, its chatbot already available in the test phase.

Called Med-PaLM 2, the chatbot is based on PaLM, the language model developed by Google and the source of the company’s generative AI programs. Specifically designed and intended for the medical field, it must be able to respond precisely to questions that could be asked of a doctor, even taking into account the symptoms indicated by patients. However, while the results are impressive, the tool is far from perfect.

A promising tool, but still imprecise

Indeed, in a study made public by Google last May, Med-PaLM 2 showed certain inaccuracies and an annoying tendency to provide irrelevant information. In short, it suffers from recurring problems with this type of program, which can also be found on Bard and ChatGPT. This makes him less competent than the medical profession, if one really had to judge.

However, the tool has proven to be very effective in its reasoning process, especially for simple topics on which there is consensus within the medical community. Moreover, he has not yet shown any signs of misunderstanding. As it stands, according to an internal Google email revealed by the wall street journalit would be quite useful in areas where “ access to a doctor is limited “.

Greg Corrado, Google’s head of research, however, said he doesn’t want Med-PaLM 2 to be part of his own family’s health journey. However, he adds that while the program is still in its infancy, it could already increase the efficiency of the medical profession in the areas where it is performing well.

Source : The Verge