According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Google’s AI tool known as Med-PaLM 2 has been undergoing testing since April at prominent medical institutions, including the Mayo Clinic research hospital.
Med-PaLM 2 is a specialized version derived from PaLM 2, which was initially introduced at Google I/O in May of this year. PaLM 2 serves as the underlying language model for Google’s Bard.
The WSJ article reveals that an internal email obtained by the publication stated Google’s confidence in the enhanced capabilities of Med-PaLM 2, particularly in regions with limited access to healthcare professionals.
This updated model of Med-PaLM has been trained on a carefully curated collection of medical expert demonstrations, which Google believes will enable more effective healthcare conversations compared to generalized chatbots such as Bard, Bing, and ChatGPT.
The article additionally highlights a research paper released by Google in May, which reveals that Med-PaLM 2, like other large language models, still encounters accuracy challenges. In the study, physicians discovered more inaccuracies and irrelevant information in the responses generated by Google’s Med-PaLM and Med-PaLM 2 compared to those provided by human doctors.
However, despite these accuracy concerns, Med-PaLM 2 demonstrated comparable performance to actual doctors in nearly all other metrics assessed, including showcasing evidence of reasoning, providing consensus-supported answers, and exhibiting correct comprehension.
The Wall Street Journal reports that during the testing phase of Med-PaLM 2, customers will have control over their encrypted data, ensuring that Google does not have access to it.
Greg Corrado, the Senior Research Director at Google, stated in the WSJ article that Med-PaLM 2 is still in its early stages of development. While Corrado mentioned he wouldn’t personally rely on it for his family’s healthcare needs, he expressed his belief that Med-PaLM 2 has the potential to significantly enhance healthcare by expanding the areas where AI can provide substantial benefits.