AI in healthcare: Google’s Med-PaLM 2 chatbot enters testing phase in US hospitals

Med-PaLM 2, Google’s AI chatbot for healthcare, is now being tested in US-healthcare facilities. The medical chatbot was created using Google’s PaLM 2, which was unveiled at Google I/O in May of this year. The chatbot is a variation of the PaLM 2 language framework designed especially for healthcare facilities. The AI chatbot Google Bard, which is presently being tested by Google users, is likewise powered by the same language model.

Since April, an AI chatbot has been used to respond to medical questions and facilitate discussions on health-related topics. The chatbot’s discusssion capabilities are enhanced by training it on an intelligent choice of scenarios from medical experts, as opposed to more generalized chatbots like Bard, Bing, and ChatGPT. The AI would gather data from its users; however, the data will be encrypted. In simple words, Google won’t have access to it. 

But when compared to answers from other doctors, Med-PaLM 2’s answers is found to be more inaccurate and to contain extraneous information. 

According to a senior researcher who worked on the project, the product is still in its infancy. He noted that while he wouldn’t want AI to play a role in his own family’s medical needs, Med-PaLM 2 can be very helpful in the healthcare industry, particularly since AI can increase access to healthcare by a factor of ten.

Med-PaLM 2 is still undergoing exhaustive testing at renowned research institutions like the Mayo Clinic. According to Google, the AI chatbot’s ability to provide precise medical data will be very beneficial, especially in countries where access to clinicians is scarce. Google argues that because the platform’s learning material consists on examples from medical experts, it is more adept at participating in conversations about healthcare than standard chatbots like Google Bard, ChatGPT, or Bing AI.

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