The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots has opened up possibilities for doctors and patients alike. This technology offers convenience, but also comes with a degree of risk due to the potential for misdiagnosis, privacy issues and unconscious biases. A prominent example of AI being used in the medical field is ChatGPT, which can replicate dialogue and provide personalized medical advice. In fact, the software recently passed the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam.
Dr. Robert Pearl, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, believes that over time ChatGPT could become of the same level of importance to doctors as the stethoscope was for medical professionals during the 20th century. The software is currently in its research phase, however OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has mentioned that the program will eventually need to become monetized so as to compensate for the computationally intensive programming.
AI applications in the medical field span as far back as 2007 when IBM created an open-domain question-answering system named Watson. In 2017, a team of scientists used Watson to identify new RNA-binding proteins that are altered in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Additionally, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, University of Waterloo researchers developed AI models that predicted which patients in the hospital were likely to acquire severe kidney damages.
What makes ChatGPT different than other AI platforms is its capacity to communicate as Huda Idrees, founder and CEO of Dot Health, a health data tracker, explains. ChatGPT has already been therapeutically put to use by an emergency room doctor who entered anonymized patient data and received around a 50 per cent success rate. However, the JAMA study published on April 28th found ChatGPT to be preferred over physicians for the quality and empathy of their responses.
Although it is currently in a research phase, ChatGPT could eventually be employed in the home to monitor patients who may have conditions such as diabetes. But, previous studies have indicated that physicians vastly outperform computer algorithms in terms of diagnostic accuracy. The technology still has a long way to go before it can be used for medical practice and that includes issues of misdiagnosis, data privacy, and bias.
OpenAI is the company mentioned in this article. This is an American technology research organization and venture capitalist sentup dedicated to researching and development of AGI technology. OpenAI operates under a non-profit artificial intelligence research company and is backed by tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon. OpenAI’s main focus is on researching safe and feasible artificial general intelligence, while other projects include reinforcement learning, robotics, natural language processing, computer vision and more.
Sam Altman is the person mentioned in this article. He is the CEO of the technology research company OpenAI. He serves on the board of several tech companies, including Y Combinator, a startup accelerator, and several technology startups. He is also the founder of Y Combinator, a startup accelerator and alternative investor, and takes part in several philanthropic activities. Altman notably also serves as a special advisor to the White House Office of Science and Technology and is a strong proponent of self-driving cars.
